


Fire & Mist

by AETXL



Series: "Autumn Comes When You're Not Yet Done" [2]
Category: Frozen (Disney Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Give Elsa A Girlfriend (Disney), LGBTQ, elsamaren
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:20:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 30,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27377860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AETXL/pseuds/AETXL
Summary: Follow up to Mist & Fire(obvs)---Elsa processes her trip to the Smoky Mountains, her attraction to a woman there and her failed attempt at acting on it. She's not ready to let others know yet, but she begins to live for herself in baby steps. Little does she know that forces outside her control transpire and going slow might not be an option.Between Elsa's meddling sister and Honeymaren's meddling brother, we learn that meddling ends badly.Except when it doesn't.---I would rate this Teen overall, but a RELATIVELY innocent scene does take place in a mature place, so... there will be a warning for that scene.
Relationships: Anna & Kristoff (Disney), Anna/Kristoff (Disney), Elsa & Honeymaren (Disney), Elsa/Honeymaren (Disney)
Series: "Autumn Comes When You're Not Yet Done" [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1980286
Comments: 32
Kudos: 54





	1. Day 8: Sunday

^*^*^*^

**Day 8: Sunday**

On one hand, thank God.

On the other, as Elsa drives her van into the university parking lot and sees Anna—arms crossed, leaning against her car, tapping her foot—real life returns to her. She has to go to work tomorrow. Severely exhausted. Decidedly changed. Ridiculously, unexpectedly gay. And tonight, she must somehow explain all of that to her little sister. Her completely and unabashedly _too enthusiastic_ sister.

“Welcome home!” she weakly calls to her team. Most of them have slept for the last hundred miles. Not all of them wake up when she puts the van into park. Elsa does not care.

That’s a lie. She cares. Her team, that beautiful bathroom and porch and even the yard. They worked their asses off. Even though Elsa sees Anna marching her way, she grins despite her exhaustion and swings open the van door. “Hey!” she calls back to the students. “Wakey, wakey, eggs and bake-y! You’re home! Sort of… I think.”

Tyler and Jenna—the two obvious gays, now that Elsa thinks about it—shift beside each other in the second row of seats, waking slowly, and the others in the front passenger seat and in the third row of the van shift as well. She knows that she knows their names… just not after traveling as the sole driver of a van for thirty…ish hours?

As they slowly pile out of the van, hug each other, hug Elsa, hug their other friends in Kristoff’s van, in Bulda’s van, in Gothi’s van, and _of course_ insist on one more group picture, Elsa remains painfully aware of Anna’s presence at the edge of the crowd. Yes, she truly _did_ have a vacation. _Hold up_ , she thinks during the third picture—taken by her dutiful, delightful sister. _I have_ so _many more vacation days, I could take off tomorrow!_ But what would she even do? Wallow?

“Elsa!” Strong, slight arms wrap around her.

“Anna!”

Behind them, a lower voice says, “Uh… Kristoff?”

“Oh yeah! Kristoff!” Anna shouts, wrapping her arms around his waist as if she’s hellbent on proving that she can hug him tighter than she hugged her older sister. Elsa smirks at her while taking a studious look at Anna’s jaw. There’s a little swelling, but nothing nearly as bad as when she had her wisdom teeth removed. “Whoa okay!” Anna announces. “I love you, but boy do you need a real bath. You too, Els.”

^*^*^*^

“You’re the one who said I needed a bath,” Elsa reminds Anna as she follows Elsa around her apartment. “And I decidedly need to some private time, too.”

“But Elsa, you specifically put it in writing,” Anna begins, holding her phone up as evidence. “That I’m supposed to remind you to _talk to me_. All I’ve done for days now is wait around to remind you and—”

“We can talk about it later, Anna,” Elsa insists, turning to face her pursuer outside her bathroom door. “Please, all I want to do right now is get in a bath and go to bed. We’ll talk tomorrow, okay?”

She gives Anna a quick peck on the forehead to reassure her. Her cat, Gale, rushes toward the door, also determined to spend time with Elsa. “Nope, no! Me time.” Elsa scoops Gale up and scootches her away, then goes into the bathroom and locks the door behind her.

“You know I don’t have that kind of patience!” Anna shouts through the door.

“Anna! Go home!”

“Okay okay okay!” Anna says, presumably throwing her hands up in frustration. Elsa smirks at her tone while starting the water to her shower. “Sunday dinner and charades together tomorrow instead! You promise?”

“I promise,” Elsa calls.

“Love you!”

“Love you, too,” Elsa says, rolling her eyes a little.

“Goodbyyyyye!”

“I’m not going to tell you anything through the bathroom door.”

“Dammit! Okay, we’re leaving!”

Distantly, Elsa hears Anna gather Kristoff up, hears them leave her apartment to head back to their apartment. Only then does she breathe a huge sigh of relief. Her smile falls, and the emotional exhaustion catches up with the physical. She showers, then draws a bath. In the warm water, Elsa huddles around herself, thinking over the last several days.

She should have known sooner.

How could she have _not_ figured out her attraction to women before now?

_I totally had a crush on that girl in high school_ , she thinks. _Was her name Cass? Cassidy?_ The fact that she can’t remember her name makes Elsa’s hurt all the more. How many women had she been blindly in love with over her short life?

How could she possibly know after the last six years? Elsa sighs heavily, wondering at how often she denied her own happiness over all this time to keep her sister with her. Vaguely, she recalls Honeymaren’s report on Yelena, how the woman ‘fought tooth and nail’ to adopt Ryder and herself. Hadn’t she done the same for Anna?

_Oh Anna…_ Elsa shakes her head at herself, leaning her head against the tub. _How am I going to tell her?_ Maybe if she goes to work tomorrow, think about something else for a while, a course of action will present itself…

Elsa’s mind goes steadily blank… Not quite a dream, not quite an imagining, Elsa pictures Honeymaren… knocking on the door, asking to come in, sitting by the tub and running her fingers through Elsa’s hair… When Elsa’s eyes snap back open, she hears Gale pawing at the door. Time to get up.

^*^*^*^


	2. Day 9: Monday

^*^*^*^

**Day 9: Monday**

By the time Elsa truly realizes she came back to work today, her stomach grumbles for her lunch break. She’d gotten up, gone for a run, done her morning routine, made the commute, and _worked_ for hours. Caught up on projects. Interacted with people, with her boss. All the while, she had barely noticed what she was doing.

_That can’t be good,_ Elsa thinks to herself, excusing herself from her desk. Her boss has a golf outing on the calendar, so she gathers her lunch up and heads for the elevators. Cold air rushes over her on her way out the automatic doors of the skyscraper as she exits the building. Her heels tap against the sidewalk, hurried footsteps, until she at last reaches a park. Stopping at the corner, Elsa looks around the park, smaller than half of a city block. She’s never come here before. When she spots a bench that isn’t occupied, she advances, albeit slower this time.

Eating her sandwich beneath a trimmed tree, Elsa feels unsatisfied. Not that feeling unsatisfied is _unusual_ , if anything it’s the most common sensation of her whole life. But now, sitting in a greenspace too small, surrounded on all sides by buildings full of unsatisfied people with one small triangle of blue sky above her… Perhaps for the first time in a life full of fighting for so little recompense, unsatisfied is intolerable. Looking at the second half of her sandwich, Elsa finds herself without an appetite. She sighs, packs herself up after a mere ten minutes at the park. On her way back to the office, she wraps up the sandwich, tucks it under the arm of a man sleeping on a bench.

Hopefully one of two of them will get some satisfaction from the meal.

^*^*^*^

Elsa can do her job in her sleep. It’s not difficult for her do her work and simultaneously do some personal research into universities in the area. Looking through their websites, she doesn’t know exactly what she’s looking for in them, what she’d like to pursue, but she’s got to do something. Anything. Familiarizing herself with what’s available nearby is at least a start.

That, and trying to search for a Youtube video of a certain Hozier cover, but nothing turns up.

On her commute home, Elsa can’t help but notice that, as unaware as she was on her way in to work this morning, she’s ten times the opposite now. Namely, she feels extremely aware of her body in space. Especially in relation to any and all women around her. Very few of them _attract_ her, per se, but nonetheless Elsa steals glances, notices everything:

Nail polish.

Earrings.

Cheeks, red from the evening chill.

Curly hair.

Beanies.

Skinny jeans stretched by round hips. Stiff pantsuits. Flowing skirts. Coveralls.

Heels, boots, an unfortunate pair of flip flops.

Adorable buck teeth.

Big lips.

Holding a child.

Reading a book.

Carrying a cane.

Chewing gum.

Being a woman is hard, Elsa knows from experience. (Presumably, being a woman who prefers women will also be—or already has been—hard, as well.) However, somewhere between her heart and her stomach, she feels a fierce, new loyalty to women. She keeps to herself, even as her heart goes out to all these women, these strangers, some of whom, admittedly, wouldn’t reciprocate that loyalty.

It’s a strange sensation.

And it still isn’t satisfaction.

None of these women have star-speckled brown eyes, a smile that always bends toward a smirk, finger tips calloused from guitar strings and power tools, an easy generosity, or the ability to scare off a black bear. _Honeymaren…_

She mutes her phone, pulls up Youtube… still, nothing.

With a huff, Elsa stands, makes her way to train door for the next stop. Leaving the subway, she turns her coat up to the wind and makes the trek to her home. Anna and Kristoff will be over in an hour at most.

^*^*^*^

“I’m sorry, Gale, all right?” Elsa says toward the bathroom door as she vacuums her apartment. Apparently, just because Anna took care of her cat over the past week did not mean she would take care of any cleaning or watering plants or checking the mail. Normal things she’d expect but… Elsa shakes her head with a smile. She lets Gale out of the bathroom, tidies up in there, too. Although her little sister isn’t a fully blossomed adult, she does good. She’s figuring it out. And she’s pursuing her dreams, one class at a time in college.

On her way out of the bathroom, Gale jumps onto Elsa’s shoulder, snuggles against the back of her neck. “Hello!” Elsa says, surprised at first. “Did you miss me, little troublemaker?” she asks, reaching up to imprecisely scratch under Gale’s chin. “You must have if your auntie Anna let you climb everything.” Seems likely by the state of the window shades. Twirling, Elsa spins until Gale rests on her back in her arms. The cat chirrups, used to Elsa’s surprises and grace. “Down you go,” she says, releasing Gale. “They’ll be here any minute.”

Indeed, Gale waits by the front door to Elsa’s apartment for only seconds when a knock meets their ears. Elsa answers to Anna, automatically blocking Gale’s escape attempts with her feet. “Ha! I learned my lesson with you!” the young woman says to the cat before rushing in to hug her sister. Behind her, Kristoff… tries.

“Wait come back!” he shouts, grabbing Gale quickly when she darts past Anna down the hall. Shaking his head and bending low to toss her back into the apartment, he comments, “Dogs are so much simpler.”

“You say that,” Anna responds, barely removing herself from Elsa’s hug, “and yet litter is _much simpler_ than walks!”

“Only with _our_ dogs,” he says, closing the door behind him. “Most dogs aren’t as… active!”

Elsa suppresses a chuckle. “Enough pet envy, you two.”

“Hey! We love our dogs!” Anna challenges, playful, like the light in life that she is.

“I said nothing to suggest otherwise,” Elsa responds innocently. “However, we have dinner to enjoy. Real, human food.”

“Not just sandwiches and burnt coffee,” Kristoff agrees hungrily, stepping further into Elsa’s kitchen. Her face softens slightly. Though she treasures her ‘artisanal’ pour-over coffee every morning, her liberal neighbors, her trips to the theater, something about those country sandwiches and mugs of burnt coffee softened her during the past week, and she briefly hates the suggestion that those things were less than excellent. But Anna notices. At least, Elsa notices the slightest change in Anna’s countenance in response to her own face, assessing her. They both learned growing up how to make quick appraisals, fast expressions.

“No,” Elsa says at last, smiling, ever hospitable. “But I didn’t cook tonight.”

“But your cooking’s _phenomenal!”_ Anna insists.

“So is ramen.”

“RAMEN!” Kristoff and Anna shout in unison, putting all three in a fit of giggles.

“I thought you’d like it since it got so much colder tonight.”

“Ugh, I am not ready to say goodbye to summer!” Anna frets, taking her usual seat when she visits.

Kristoff sits beside her at the table, countering, “It’s been autumn for a while, bab—Anna.”

To herself, Elsa rolls her eyes. Certainly, she’s a formal personality, but these two hold an obnoxious amount of romantic restraint around her, specifically. “Anyway,” she says, removing the plates laying on top of the three bowls on the table. “I got our favorites from Blowfish, dig in!”

The first several minutes of their weekly Sunday night dinner together (on Monday) is occupied with sounds of happy satisfaction at the flavors, the food, the temperature of the food compared to outside (not hard in mid- to late-October). All of which mainly involves slurping sounds interspersed with words. Elsa approves of her own choice to go with a comfort-food favorite of her sister’s. Anna certainly eats plenty of ramen in general, but it’s nice to treat her to the kind that doesn’t come from a styrofoam cup in a microwave. Kristoff, too, despite—

“Starvation is not happening now!” Anna announces, sitting up and away from her bowl of ramen. “So now, tell me _everything_ about your trip! All the things!”

Their pause is insignificant in terms of time passing, yet for a split-second Elsa meets Kristoff’s eyes, right as he’s about to put another mouthful of noodles into his face. Elsa can tell in that split second that he—Kristoff, of all people—can see the pain in her, even if they never talked about Honeymaren.

_He knew, he knows!_

“It was a lot!” he says, letting his utensils and food return to his bowl. “W-Where do we even begin, right Els?”

“I said _everything_ , so start day one!” Anna replies, resting her chin in her hand and smiling, eyes darting from Kristoff to Elsa and back. Mainly on Kristoff, though, thankfully. He starts to dutifully tell the story of his van’s trip to the Smoky Mountains, his team’s adventures with their house repair site, includes details about ice breakers and Yelena’s scary night-time stories per Anna’s requests, and for the most part Elsa listens. Watches them. She knows that she’s zoning out, distracted by her own memories even as she smiles, nods, and adds a comment here and there about drywall.

Although she can see Kristoff’s increased sense of feigned enthusiasm—that is, she can see him growing troubled by her own feigned smiles—Elsa focuses on Anna’s cheerful excitement. She wanted to go on this trip, prepared for months ahead of time for this trip. Instead, she fought through a root canal on her own, took care of Gale as well as tiny Olaf and enormous Sven—her and Kristoff’s dogs—without complaint. Anna _deserves_ happy versions of these stories. Unlike Elsa, fraught with new possibilities and unanswerable questions, Kristoff’s versions of events will satisfy her.

On their way out the door after dinner and games, Kristoff reminds Elsa to send him any pictures she took during the trip, that he plans to get digitized folders of all the trip pictures to every student and chaperone. She spends her time in bed, waiting for sleep and petting Gale, looking through the few pictures she did take. Although Honeymaren is in a few of them, her face is never quite in focus, breaking Elsa’s heart all over again. _I didn’t even get her phone number…_

^*^*^*^

“All right, I know what you’re going to say!” Anna says after a prolonged, peaceful silence during their trip back home from Elsa’s apartment. Little does Kristoff know, she’s been busy thinking.

“What am I going to say?” Kristoff asks with a chuckle, glancing down at her as he opens the door to their apartment for her. Two dogs—one tiny white puff-ball and one enormous German shepherd—eagerly await them, wagging their tails and whining happily.

“Hi guys, hi!” Anna says to their dogs, bending low to pet them. She picks up little Olaf, who yips happily and tries to lick her face. “Whoa, bud! I might smell like ramen but stop.” As she takes off her purse and coat, and Kristoff shuts the door, reaching for the dogs’ leashes to take them outside, she tells him, “You are going to say I should keep my nose out of my sister’s business!”

Again, he chuckles, although it might be because Sven is asking for a belly rub. “And why am I going to say that?”

“Because I am going to get to the bottom of this cryptic text of Elsa’s from last week!” she says, pulling her phone from her purse and wagging it at Kristoff from across the room. “You have to admit, it’s cryptic!”

Nodding, Kristoff says, “I have agreed it seems odd.” The way he speaks stokes Anna’s curiosity, her impatience.

“And I’ll bet you know something about it!” she announces, walking back toward him as he wrestles the harnesses on both dogs.

With a small headshake and a shrug, Kristoff smiles. “I’m afraid I don’t know _anything_ about it,” he tells her. Again. But Anna knows him, knows that twinkle in his eye.

“You’re going to be in so much trouble when I figure it out,” she says, leaning into him.

Kristoff gently kisses her, sighs. “Let me know when you do, because I don’t know anything at all about your sister.”

“Lies!” she calls after him as he heads downstairs with the dogs. Anna giggles a little, watching him go. She looks back at her phone, texts Elsa to let her know they’re home, safe and sound… then scrolls back up to read Elsa’s message: _‘Remind me to talk to you about something when we get home.’_ Tonight, she might have left Elsa alone, because she _knows_ Elsa, knows that she needs rest and space after such a busy week. But something unsettled Elsa, and after everything she’s done for Anna, this little sister will stop at nothing to support her through whatever it is. Even if she has to force it out of her.

Or, as the case might be, force it out of Kristoff. He definitely knows something.

^*^*^*^


	3. Day 13: Friday

^*^*^*^

**Day 13: Friday**

“Oh my god, I can-NOT DO IT ANYMORE!” Elsa shouts, throwing a pillow at her television, shouting at Hulu and shutting the whole contraption off. “No more ‘L-Word!’ None!” Groaning, she flops back onto her couch, grabs another pillow and pulls it tight against her chest. Hearing a tell-tale sound, Elsa turns to see that Gale is indeed attacking the pillow she threw, chomping on it playfully. Until she notices Elsa watching her. “Don’t let me stop you,” she tells the cat. “If that’s the best I can hope for, we _should_ be disappointed.” Sitting up, Elsa grumbles, starts to look through other titles. “There’s got to be something better to watch,” she mutters to herself. So far, however, finding a pleasant film or show about lesbians where no one dies (and no man drives everyone apart) has not proven easy to find.

“All _week_ , I’ve looked,” she says as her cat jumps onto the couch, attacking the other pillow. The pang hits Elsa again as she turns toward Gale’s movement. With a shuddering breath, she lightly passes her hand over Gale’s back. For whatever reason, though, what she sees in her mind’s eye is Honeymaren by the fire, talking about film school. She wishes she’d said a proper goodbye to her, wishes she’d gotten her number somehow, done something to show her appreciation. _That’s silly,_ she tells herself. _What, a ‘thank you for being my gay awakening, sorry I projected that onto you’ gift?_

Elsa stands, walks to her desk and opens her laptop. It’s too late to apply for any programs that start in the spring, but she checks application dates for next autumn. Not that she’s settled on a school, or a program. Yet. Briefly, she peeks at a tab she’s had open all week, refreshes it. It's her only hope to get in contact with Honeymaren again. Google still has nothing to report when she searches “Honeymaren,” “Hozier,” “In A Week,” and/or “cover.” As disappointment descends upon her like a cloak, Elsa goes to her bedroom, returns with Honeymaren’s sweater on, and switches back to the universities’ tabs, taking notes on application requirements and due dates.

^*^*^*^

“Hey, everybody? Everybody! Hey, stop!” Honeymaren shouts from the porch of the worksite. The volunteer team—both of which are strong words—finally stops screwing around and pays her mind. “That was Yelena on the sat-phone. We got some bad weather headed our way, so I need y’all to head on back to the lodge.”

As expected, no one minds this information because this particular team of volunteers is useless. She withholds an eye-roll as the teenagers audibly mock their tasks, the house, the occupants. _Last day with them,_ Honeymaren reminds herself. The chaperone approaches her, however. She asks him, “Do you remember the way back?”

“Yes,” he answers, “But are you not coming with us?”

“Nah! I’m almost done with installing the new lights in there, I won’t be long.”

“I could send the kids back, let one of them drive, and I’ll wait here with you?”

She blinks twice at this man. A man easily twice her age, wearing shorts and some high-end polo shirt in _this_ climate, with ungroomed hair growing out his nostrils. Although she swallows a harsh laugh, Honeymaren looks pointedly at the man’s wedding ring until he, too, looks at it. Then, back up to his eyes. “You and I both know none of those kids can handle that van. Get outta here.” When he gapes at her rebuttal, she adds, “Now!” Even points.

At last he retreats, just in time for the school bus to return. Honeymaren watches him go until the little girl is inside the house.

A million other things that she wishes she said to that chaperone swirl in her brain as Honeymaren finishes wiring the new ceiling light in the bathroom. Some of them, she says under her breath.

“Auntie Hon-marn?”

Turning to the bathroom doorway, she asks the little girl, “What’s up, sweetheart?” Hopefully, she spoke quietly enough under her breath that the child wouldn’t go repeating her.

“Gramma says you sh’ get home be… because the snow.”

“Snow?!” Honeymaren descends the ladder, folds it, and hits the light switch. It works. “Yes!” she whispers to herself, but she follows her little hostess to the front room, where ‘Gramma’ is fretfully watching the windows. “It’s really snowing?”

Quietly, the elder responds, “Yes, child. So sudden!”

“Okay,” Honeymaren says, just as quiet. “I’ll be leaving. Give us a call tomorrow? Let me know if you need any shoveling or other help?” Once they agree, Honeymaren grabs her toolbox and heads outside. She shouts almost instantly, “Shit!”

Yelena hadn’t been kidding about that bad weather. Snow floats down in large, fluffy, wet clumps. It’s beautiful, and absolutely not what she wants to be driving in no matter the vehicle. Honeymaren tosses the toolbox onto a seat, then jumps into the back. As fast as she can, she ‘sweeps’ the snow out—already half an inch!—and covers the bed with a tarp that she ties down. Climbing back into the cab, she shakes the snow off herself before turning the engine over.

Eventually. Eventually the engine turns, chugging to life. “Thank you, thank you!” she breathes, kisses her hand and pats the dashboard. All’s well for the majority of the trip back toward the volunteer lodge as her old truck carries her through winding valley roads and back to the main highway. As she turns onto the almost-vertical road up to the lodge, Honeymaren bites her lip, pats the dashboard again. “Don’t give up on me yet, buddy.”

Carefully, she presses into the gas pedal. The truck clambers up the hill, spitting snow and dirt behind it. Although the wheels spin without traction here and there, nothing happens that Honeymaren can’t manage. She sighs with relief, knowing she had planned to put on snow tires over the upcoming weekend.

About two-thirds of the way up the mountain, though, the truck starts to fishtail hard. “No no no!” Honeymaren shouts. The truck spins, at an angle on the road, the weight isn’t balanced right for the steep incline, it starts to slip backyards. Yelping, Honeymaren turns the wheel with the skid, hits the brakes and pulls the emergency break.

The truck stops with a lurch.

Honeymaren takes several quick, deep breaths. Wide eyed, she lets out a frustrated howl, leans back against her seat. When she jumped in front of a whole entire bear last week, every moment that she’d ever been brave flashed through her mind. Now, alone in this godforsaken truck, her every regret hits her full force. Top among them would be losing her parents, and for a second it looked like losing Yelena and Ryder, too. But also, most unexpectedly…

_Why didn’t you fucking tell her?_

Another, wilder, weaker groan sweeps out Honeymaren’s lungs as she shakes her head at herself. When she opens her eyes again, she prepares to right the truck, releases the emergency brake, fights her way back up that hill.

_You tried,_ she reminds herself. _And it wasn’t easy, and you should have sooner, you shouldn’t have let her apologize or run away._ Guilt hits her in the gut, but Honeymaren breathes through it, letting it pass the same moment she crests the top of the last climb. She turns into the lodge’s lot, covered in pristine snow, parks. Takes a minute to herself in the truck. “You chickened out,” she tells herself aloud, albeit softly. “And that’s… okay. People make mistakes. And it’s terrible, but it’s okay. Terrible things just happen.”

Sighing, Honeymaren turns to open the door, only to see Yelena standing outside her door. Startled, she yelps again, jumping in her seat. Yelena smirks, knocks on the window. “What?” Honeymaren hisses, hand-cranking the window down.

“Why’d you park here?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because your brother and I got the plow out for your truck, all on our own.”

“Oh… right.” Honeymaren looks where Yelena points across the lot. She drives a truck; therefore, she plows for the county when it snows. Side money.

“C’mon, kiddo,” Yelena says, smiling gently. “Let’s get you hooked up, then feed you, hm? You can serve your community a little more after you eat. I’ll spot you.”

“Sure, yeah,” Honeymaren says, feeling down but smiling at Yelena’s kindness. As her ‘auntie Yel’ walks over to the plow, Honeymaren checks her phone. Despite herself, she opens her cloud, just to look at the file of the video of the cover she sang with Elsa. She can’t play it on her phone, the file’s too big, but she likes to look at it. And not post it. The moment she posts it, everyone will know, just like she knew for sure when she watched it the first time, that very night when she couldn’t sleep because she wanted Elsa beside her. To keep talking to...

So, she doesn’t post it.

“Hey kiddo!” Yelena shouts, waking Honeymaren from her trance. “We can’t kick out these useless tourists tomorrow if the roads aren’t plowed! Hurry or I ain’t making more coffee for you.”

^*^*^*^


	4. Day 14: Saturday

^*^*^*^

**Day 14: Saturday**

There are upsides to plowing all night with a thermos of coffee. Honeymaren smiles to herself, taking a deeply settling breath. She grabs her thermos, climbs out of her truck, kicking snow playfully as she climbs the stairs to the porch. Within minutes, the sun rises, reflecting off of snow and glittering across the mountains’ mist.

A little after she hears the first stirrings of their latest, not-greatest batch of volunteers, Ryder approaches. “Hey!” he says through a yawn. “How was plowing duty?”

“Not terrible,” she concedes. “I don’t have to do anything today.”

“Don’t remind me,” he says, grinning and nudging her with his elbow. “Sure you don’t wanna take on cleaning duty with me? Or for me?”

“Not for a million dollars.” Honeymaren returns her gaze to the sunrise, letting its light refresh her. Yet Ryder interrupts her peace.

“I don’t have a million dollars, but I do wanna show you something,” he says. She looks at him, quizzical at his strangely serious tone. He scratches his head, appears puzzled himself, then passes his phone to her. It’s open to his text messages, and the most recent one came late last night. Glancing back at him, Ryder's not hiding his anxiety well.

“From Kristoff? That blond guy from last week?”

^*^*^*^

Kristoff stares at his phone messages. _I… did not write that! I didn’t text that!_ _That can only mean…_ He frowns the whole way through swinging his legs off the bed, tripping on the IKEA dresser like he does every morning, getting dressed. _I’m making us a real dresser one of these days,_ he tells himself, as he does every morning, forgetting by nightfall. He places his hand on the bedroom door handle, gathers himself, determined to be chill.

“Anna?”

As he turns the corner toward the main room, he sees that Anna sits on the couch with a cup of coffee. Olaf dozes happily in her lap as she mindlessly pets the dog's curly hair. Her eyes dart Kristoff's way, her lips thin. Big, blue, doe eyes, and Kristoff knows that she’s already full of regret.

“I’m sorry.”

He sighs in response, already offering a comforting smile and nodding. “I know, baby.” _Go time, big guy,_ he reminds himself. Kristoff takes slow measured steps, moving gently, quietly, keeps his body as relaxed as possible. After three years, he knows that Anna suffers greatly from a fear of rejection, and while he knows _he_ would never reject any bit of her, he also knows that fear operates to prevent harm, not to act reasonably. He knows, because when they started dating, he started reading.

She felt rejected before, so she fears it now, even from him. Although Kristoff’s shocked at what she’s done overnight, he knows Anna does not deserve to see her greatest fear made real by his anger. Therefore, he controls his body language with the utmost care, staying soft and relaxed as he sits beside her on the couch, ignoring both Sven and Olaf’s yips and jumps, attempts to take over his attention.

Laying his arm across the back of the couch behind her, reminding her that she’s welcome at his side, Kristoff waits for Anna to turn toward him. First, though, she groans.

“I knoooooow! I do, I get it now!”

“Anna.”

“I should never ever whatever go into your phone,” she says, holding tight to her coffee and yet talking with her hands anyway. “It was a transgression of trust, and privacy, and I had no right and no real reason—because the only exception would be if I questioned my own safety—”

“Correct,” Kristoff says, nodding. He checks her face, her hands—relaxing. Good.

“And I _especially_ should not have also invaded _my own sister’s_ privacy by looking through _your texts_ , so it was completely crossing the line.” Nodding still, Kristoff restrains himself to only an encouraging smile, watching for any signs of true distress. Anna’s voice wavers a little, and that’s to be expected when she apologizes, he’s learned. She takes a deep breath, just like Elsa does, takes a big sip of coffee.

“You did cross some major lines.”

“And,” she says, meeting his eyes with purpose, “I am so sorry. I will never do that ever again.”

Nine times out of ten, Kristoff knows, Anna’s right about everything. She makes sure of it, to avoid the rejection. So, he knows that those four words are hard for her to admit, to give, to risk. With that in mind, Kristoff lightly wraps his hand around her shoulder and presses a kiss to her forehead. Hearing her make the tiniest sound in response lets him know he’s done right by her, and his anger has left him, without having to say a word. “Thank you,” he says.

However, pointing at his face, she smugly adds, “But I was right!”

“Anna.”

“I was! There _was_ something that was NOT nothing happening with Elsa—!”

Olaf barks along excitedly.

“Anna!”

“And I knew that _you knew_ about it, explicitly!” She stands up on the couch, triumphant.

Sven stands up from his dog bed in the corner, taking cautious steps forward to assess the strange human behavior.

“I know nothing explicit!” he insists seriously.

“Not _that_ kind of explicit,” she shrugs.

It takes him a moment, then he gasps, shocked. “ANNA, NO!”

“But the question now—” 

“NO KIND OF EXPLICIT, BABE! NOTHING LIKE THAT, GOD!”

“—is what do we do now that we have this information that we BOTH have!”

Kristoff stands up. He’s not sure when Anna stood up, but it’s time for him to stand up. How his beloved girlfriend, who adores her older sister, ever thought this was okay is beyond his reckoning. For possibly the first time they’ve been together—three years!—he allows himself a truly cross face. “Anna! We do nothing!”

“But Kristoff!”

“No! This is for Elsa to decide, not us!” he says, sweeping his hands in front of him, desperate. “We cannot force her out of the closet!”

Anna fixes him with a glare, the smug kind. “And what, pray tell, were you and this Ryder brother fellow doing then, hm?”

His stomach grumbles from hunger, but for some reason it sounds like his body admitting guilt. Kristoff tries his best to glare back at her. “That was different! There was—!”

Eyes wide, too excited, Anna asks, “What was there?”

_Oh shit! Don’t out_ two _women at once!_ Kristoff backs up, takes several deep breaths. More calmly, he says, “Anna, please, this is for Elsa to figure out. Even if we’re supportive, even if we want to send encouragement her way, we can’t make her come out. If we do that before she’s ready…” He stops short, hoping his wide, begging eyes will communicate to the absolute love of his life that the thing she fears most—rejection—would be her experience if she forces Elsa’s hand like this. Outright telling her that the worst thing ever (in her eyes) would in fact happen… He can’t bring himself to say those words.

Instead, she asks back, “If we try to give her the greatest gift that exists, true love?!”

“Huh?”

Anna looks at him as if he hasn’t got a brain. “Babe,” she says, “Look at the messages. Like I know I shouldn’t have, but really read them.”

Kristoff holds his breath, looking down at her. _Love of my life,_ he thinks, slowly holding his phone up to his eyes and grimacing. _Love of my life,_ he reminds himself, unlocking it— _Note to self, turn off fingerprint unlock—She is the love of my life_ … And he opens his messages, clicks on Ryder’s name, and looks over the message now that he’s properly awake.

“Oh God…”

“I mean, we can’t back down on that, right?” Anna asks. She hops off the couch, walks around behind and leans over the back of it, looks over Kristoff's messages over his shoulder. “Oh, we definitely can’t back out now, they are so IN!”

Turning his eyes to her, tight-lipped, Kristoff deliberately drops his phone as if it’s a mic. “Anna… No! And what ‘in?’ That’s not ‘in,’ necessarily! They could definitely back out, _or_ they could not and be really upset!”

Her face drops, too. Quietly, she asks, “Is… Is it bad?”

Swallowing thickly, already imagining Elsa’s wrath, Kristoff can feel his face paling. “If we do this, and she’s not ready…” He repeats quietly, runs his hands through his hair. Sven walks to Kristoff’s side and sits, looks at him sadly. Dutifully, Kristoff pets his bestie. They both turn to Anna. “She’ll be really upset to find out we invaded her privacy like this, especially if it’s far enough in the future and she’s still not out to us.”

“Well, but we can totally convince her to be out to us, right?” Anna asks.

Shaking his head, Kristoff tells her, “No. That’s the real privacy issue here. It’s why I didn’t talk to Elsa directly about it myself.”

Anna’s eyes water as she takes several breaths, can’t look him in the eye. He _hates_ when she’s too upset to look him in the eye, because it breaks his heart. So, so soft, Anna says, “I’m really sorry.”

“I know, baby.”

Leaning forward over the couch, arms hugging herself, she asks, “Don’t let her kill me, okay?”

Wrapping her into a real—if awkward—hug, Kristoff assures her, “Elsa would never actually kill you. But no, I won’t let her. Promise.”

^*^*^*^

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I strongly believe Kristoff would do extra homework to be a good partner


	5. Day 28: Saturday

^*^*^*^

**Day 28: Saturday**

“And there goes the last of ‘em,” Yelena states. She sits on the stairs with Ryder and Honeymaren, both perched on a step down and in front of her. Together they watch the last group of volunteers depart the lodge, leaving tire tracks in the most recent dusting of snow. “We had a good season,” she says, adding quietly, “Despite that one group a couple weeks ago.”

"Polo shirt guy?" Ryder asks.

"That's right," she chuckles. Sighing with satisfaction, Yelena says, “I’m honestly surprised we got that many home repairs done in time.”

“Good help helps,” Honeymaren observes quietly, shutting her eyes. A thin mist shields them from terribly bright sunlight, but she can still feel it’s heat on her skin, steady. She can also feel Yelena watching her.

Ryder raises his arms triumphantly, but he moves stiffly and moans under his breath, “Last deep clean of the year!”

“I’ll try to contain my excitement,” Honeymaren quips, grinning.

Yelena scoffs in agreement. “Same. Who wants to bet I can get up off my ass?”

“I bet, yes,” Honeymaren says. She leans back, resting her back against the ridge of a stair. “Me on the other hand? Not so sure.”

“Come on!” Ryder encourages, pushing himself up. “We can do this. Last time ‘til spring, we’re two days from vacation station.”

As Yelena and Honeymaren groan their way (while Ryder mimics crowd-cheering sounds) into standing positions, the latter comments, “More like holiday-temp-work station.”

Meanwhile, Yelena brushes her backside off. “Looks like we could have done a better job clearing snow off these steps, hm?” The siblings nod and shrug, a simple enough admission of guilt. “Can’t say I blame you,” Yelena continues as they climb up to the porch. “I know we’re all tired, but let’s not get anybody hurt—including us.”

“Yes, Yel,” Ryder says.

She gives him a sporting pat on his back, which he turns into a short hug. “All right,” she says as Ryder crushes her ribs, kissing her white hair. “Let’s shut this building down, get outta here Monday morning.” Ryder rushes off toward the men’s bunk room, but Yelena holds her hands out to stop Honeymaren on her way to the ladies’ bunk room. “Hold on, Mare.”

“What is it?” Honeymaren asks, a chord of concern in her voice, hands in the pockets of her puffer vest.

Crossing her arms, Yelena gives her a look that is _not_ cross, and that in itself is concerning. “Just checking in. You doing okay, kiddo?”

Shrugging in response doesn’t appease her shorter elder, so Honeymaren adds, “Same as ever. Same old, same old, same old. Let’s clean and go home for winter.”

“Love the enthusiasm,” Yelena sarcastically responds with a smirk, dips her head to the side. “Listen, kiddo—”

 _Oh boy,_ Honeymaren thinks in response to that ‘listen,’ standing a little taller.

“—I know you had your heart set on starting at school again in January after September fell through, I know having to wait ‘til next fall wasn’t the game plan, and I know you’ve been down lately. And I know that _you_ know, you’re always gonna have a roof of mine over your head if you need it.”

Her shoulders settle soft as her guardian, her auntie Yel, her _Beloved_ elder, speaks to her, swallowing a bubble of emotion.

“What I hope you know,” she continues, placing a hand on Honeymaren’s shoulder. “Is that _I_ _know_ that this place ain’t your dream. It’s mine, and I’m happy here with it. I don’t expect you to make it yours, because more than anything, I want you and your brother to be happy with yourselves. And kiddo?” Yelena pauses, holds both Honeymaren's shoulders, signalling to her to touch their foreheads together, like when Honeymaren was little. Compliant, Honeymaren waits with bated breath as Yelena continues. “Your folks would have been proud of you, _all_ of you. Hm?”

Unable to speak, Honeymaren nods quickly, watching their feet, biting her lip and hoping it’ll keep her eyes from watering any further. Having mercy, Yelena slaps her hands on Honeymaren’s shoulders just once more and walks away, her boots clomping against the hardwood porch. In the chill, misty air, Honeymaren breathes through the emotion growing in her. She didn’t know that Yel knew…

^*^*^*^

Saturdays suck. Honeymaren hates cleaning day as much as Ryder does, as much as Yelena probably does, but she tries to keep it to herself. Nonetheless, the acrid stench of chemical cleaners used to sanitize the bunk rooms and wash rooms make her nostrils burn, her eyes water, her skin crawl under her layers of clothes. (Layers, because now that the season’s over, they’ve turned off the heat for every room but their apartments.)

Once the scrubbing’s done, Honeymaren retreats to her apartment. She strips immediately, shoving her chemical-laden clothes in her hamper. Later tonight, after a small dinner together, she’ll have laundry duty for all three of them while Yelena and Ryder tackle other shut down projects.

Still, the cleaning chemical smell clings to her with a vengeance, and Honeymaren darts into her bathroom, hops into a shower. She sighs into the water pressure, decides then and there to stay put until somebody comes banging on her door. Having the building’s boiler to herself is too precious a gift to ignore. Once she’s warmed up, Honeymaren starts to scrub herself down zealously, determined to get the whole last eight months off of her.

Except…

Technically, she’s clean. But Honeymaren turns to the purple bar of soap at the corner of the tub. A vulnerable side of her slowly rises in her chest, asserts itself unbidden, and as she examines the soap, strange tenderness in her eyes.

_This is ridiculous_ , she reminds herself. Just like she reminds herself every day since almost a month ago.

It’s a beautiful bar of soap—a fact that is strange, in itself. Purple with flower petals and little flecks of something pretending to be gold mixed into it. And it isn’t hers. Rather, it belonged to a woman who was daring enough to kiss Honeymaren, and she left her hanging in return. Waited too long in her own headspace, telling herself how impossible it was, berating herself for even trying to sidle up to this woman, reminding herself that Appalachia isn’t known as a bastion of safety for people like the two of them. Which is why Honeymaren never made bold moves in her whole _romantic life._

_W_ _hat romantic life?_ she asks herself, smelling Elsa’s forgotten soap, feeling entirely pathetic.

^*^*^*^

Squirming.

That’s all Elsa can do. Her sister sits still, the same cheerful smile plastered on her face for the whole however-long this theater production is. Without an intermission, Elsa can’t be certain how much time has passed. Every minute is torture. She had no idea this was a _lesbian_ play. Admittedly, she heard ‘family in a funeral home,’ and thought that would be intriguing. In itself, were she here on her own? Maybe she would have been deeply moved, because the story is gut-wrenching and beautiful. But deeply moved alongside her little, straight sister, who still doesn't know she's gay? Impossible. Because what is she supposed to do when she, Elsa, is moved to tears, while the rest of the audience laughs at a line in a song? When this actress is throwing her whole heart into her performance of a college awakening, and everyone else is identifying with it _wrong,_ laughing when they should cry? How can Elsa keep from squirming inside and out?

“I loved it!” Anna says later at dinner.

Elsa hums in agreement, calculating her every move as their food arrives. To the server she nods, says, “Thank you very much.”

“My pleasure.” A tall woman with curly hair and skin like wild mahogany, the server is so beautiful that Elsa could cry again—if she were alone.

Anna happily attacks her first bite, while Elsa continues to think it all through. How can she react to this play honestly to her sister while maintaining both her privacy and her authenticity? Lying to Anna is not Elsa’s forte, nor something she much desires, but it’s _embarrassing_ that she’s still as caught up in a random woman from the Smoky Mountains as she is. More than embarrassing, it’s revealing a desire. Letting Anna know _any_ desires at all ever feels like betraying her ultimate desire for Anna’s well-being above all things. For six years (and more, if she's honest), Anna has always come first in Elsa's life.

“What’d you think?” Anna asks through her bite.

“I haven’t had any yet,” Elsa says with a smirk.

“Of the musical! The play!” Anna swallows, smiles, enthusiastic as ever.

All she can do is play with her food, her appetite gone before she even ordered. “It was heavy,” Elsa says at last. “What a difficult relationship with her parents.”

“Yeah?” Anna asks, as if it didn’t even occur to her.

“Yes!” Elsa insists, forcing herself to stab something on her plate. “It was a huge part of the play, don’t you think?”

Anna shrugs. “I focused on the coming out part, mostly.”

“But at what cost?” Elsa asks as Anna takes another bite of her food. Meanwhile, her own fork has yet to meet her mouth. “The main character what’s-her-name felt like her very being tore her parents apart and made her father kill himself. And it’s based on a real person? That’s horrible!”

“Whoa, but slow down!” Anna holds her hands up like a stop sign. “She also went to college, met a lover—”

“And had a lot of baggage, was rejected by her—”

“Well yeah, but that was the ‘80s, so—”

“These things still happen, Anna.”

“But it’s not as bad as back then!”

“It’s JUST as bad!” Elsa asserts a little too loudly. Silence meets her ears, at least in their corner of the restaurant. She sits lower in her seat, still picking at her food at most, and slowly the diners around them return to their conversations. _Probably about me,_ she thinks. When Anna doesn’t respond with another upbeat glossing over of reality, Elsa quietly adds, “Laws on the books don’t mean anything in a lot of places, Anna. Even places that are supposedly ‘liberal,’ or 'welcoming.' We don’t know what happens to… people… like that. In those places.” She hates herself for saying it that way, as if people like herself are so different from herself. “Every day they struggle, even here in this city.”

“I know,” Anna says. Elsa restrains herself from rolling her eyes at Anna’s tone, the defensiveness there. If Anna knew, she wouldn’t sound defensive. At last, Elsa takes a bite of her food, and it does make her feel better despite herself.

Silence settles on them as they eat a minute, until Elsa decides to speak again. “We can’t take the struggles for granted while celebrating the joys, right?” Although Anna nods enthusiastically, Elsa still feels like she can’t quite give her the secret.

^*^*^*^

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** if you can guess the play they saw (before anyone else), I’ll write you an elsamaren one-shot.


	6. Day 29: Sunday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one's extra angsty

^*^*^*^

**Day 29: Sunday**

“I can’t make him wait forever, Mare.”

Honeymaren sits close by the firepit, her foot twitching with her impatience regarding this particular topic of conversation. She turns to her little brother—who smokes his cigarette without pity—wishing to any holy thing in existence that she hadn’t quit smoking. To the point she wants to fight him. Except that’s exactly why Ryder, an infrequent smoker at most, has a cigarette at all. To push her, to force her hand, to get her to do something. Anything. It’s underhanded, and it’s smart.

Even she is sick of her own bullshit.

“Why the fuck not?” she asks him, challenges him. “You two apparently took my extremely personal life into your hands long before I ever got the chance to,” she barks, causing Ryder to look away, into the fire. And Honeymaren wants to make sure he understands the level of guilt he ought to feel. “You outed me to this stranger, some random white guy, because you had a think I might like—”

“But you did—”

“Shut up, Ryder,” Honeymaren commands. “Did you ever speak to me about telling him? Did you ever ask me how I felt about y'all meddling? Did you even ask me if I had a crush on this poor woman y'all tortured with your antics?”

He sighs, blinking back tears. It's the lack of cussing that tells him how upset she is. “No.”

 _Good_ , she thinks. She wants him to cry. If it’s half as much as she’s cried in the last several weeks, it’ll be a quarter as much as she wants from him. And Kristoff what’s-his-face. “No, you didn’t, not after the first night, next morning, whatever! You boys decided to stick your heads into it, and frankly, maybe if you hadn’t, I could’ve done something that… was… with her, hm? But no, you had to be complete, intrusive little butts and y’all gaumed it all up any-the-fuck-way, didn’t you?!”

Ryder still doesn’t cry. And it pisses her off. She puts her hand out, and seeing it, he sighs and passes the cigarette to Honeymaren. Taking one long pull, Honeymaren passes it back, swallowing the cough she nearly catches from the acrid smoke. And just like that, she hates it again, hates that she did it, reminded of the chemicals that dosed her during the cleaning yesterday. The only reason she does it now is to prove a point to him.

Ryder asks, “What d’you want, Mare?”

“To get all tore up on my own, thank you,” she mutters, vulnerable with her misery. Pulling her phone up, looking at the websites Ryder sent her from that text he got weeks ago, she sighs. They’re damn good film programs. Good programs beyond film, too, at universities well beyond these mountains. _Get into these schools, you could smoke cigars,_ Honeymaren thinks sarcastically to herself. “So you wanna go?”

Although she doesn’t look his way, prefers to scoot her seat closer to the fire, she listens closely for Ryder. Meanwhile, she ushers her smart phone to the Youtube app, opening up her unpublished drafts. Her thumb hovers upon the screen, playing the video on mute.

“At the end of the day, Mare,” Ryder begins, poking at the fire. “I wanted you to be happy. ‘Course I wanna be happy, too, but… This girl made you really smile first time in years. And I don’t think Kristoff would make this offer if she didn’t… if she hadn't asked... ” He pulls his shoulders up tight, struggling to speak. “Surely, she wants this, too.”

_Oh, that hurts,_ Honeymaren thinks, trying to hide a pained sigh from Ryder. She had worked hard to hide the disappointment from him, around Elsa but also around school. Around everything their whole lives. Her job was to be the strong one.

“I went about it the wrong way, and I admit it.” Ryder leans forward, looking at her. Honeymaren can hear it, can feel his presence, his unrelenting care. “But my mistake shouldn’t mean more of your unhappiness, you know? Why not visit these schools and apply to these programs? And if you get to see Elsa again while doing all that, why not?”

Several minutes tick by at the firepit. Watching it burn, tossing another log on, Honeymaren wonders at thermodynamics, or whatever keeps this thing from burning the whole building down. Something so powerful, so wild, so hot and bothered and mad that it ought to be enough to take everything with it. No survivors. Outside these mist-laden Smoky Mountains, way out on the west coast, this simple fire could destroy lives, destroy hope.

A little part of her wants to destroy out of spite, destroy her own hopes.

Her eyes venture sideways to Ryder’s phone, resting in his hands, shimmering in the firelight. If only there was a way to accept this proposition and simultaneously punish her brother for his meddling.

“Look Mare,” he says suddenly, irking her further. “I don’t think life’s got a meaning. Not beyond happiness. It’s all unfair, not one bit good but happiness. And I know you could be happier. I want you happier. I fucked up how much happier you could be, but happier is happier. You gonna do this or not?”

“First of all,” Honeymaren says, grinning. “I’m gonna beat your ass for that speech.” Without a glance back, Ryder bolts.

^*^*^*^

It’s not like Kristoff to freeze during charades. Certain board games when he must act against his beloved Anna, sure. But Elsa can’t wrap her mind around what word he must have gotten during this round that could leave him stiff as a board. After all, that’s her thing. And as much as he prefers the company of cats and dogs to humans, he’s more of a people person than she is.

“Board?” Anna guesses, peering at him.

“Swimming board,” Elsa offers. Nothing.

“A wall!”

“Corpse? Coffin?”

The more they guess, the more uncomfortable he looks. Then, he outright glares at Anna, a look he has never worn in front of Elsa. For a second, she gets defensive of her sister, protective, until she remembers that Anna prepared the prompts for tonight’s round of games. Turning to her little sister, Elsa notices a blush to her cheeks, her foot twitching against the floor. Anxious... that's not like her.

Returning her gaze to Kristoff, Elsa fixes him with a determined glare and pointedly turns off the timer on her phone. Anna remains silent. Kristoff gulps. Elsa watches, patient. From her lap, Olaf yawns. Behind her, she hears Gale jump onto the back of the couch and curl up by her shoulder.

Sighing heavily and blushing fiercely, the young man nonetheless stands upright.

“Uh… b-barista?” Anna guesses.

It’s a fair guess, he does seem to pretend to be drinking from a mug. In the interest of fairness, Elsa cannot fathom what Kristoff could be mimicking. “Hat?”

“Hat on a barista,” Anna muses. Olaf groans, encouraging them all while wagging his tail.

She can’t tell if Anna is pretending not to know the prompt or is as puzzled as Elsa is. Especially after Anna’s blush a moment ago. Kristoff tries another route, though, and her blush indeed returns.

“What’s he doing?” Elsa asks quietly as Kristoff moves his hands in very specific motions.

“Sign language,” Anna squeaks.

“Surely that’s cheating,” Elsa says, watching Kristoff’s desperate face. “I don’t know why I’m not mad yet, you two, but Kristoff, no sign language.”

He whines. Which gets Sven to whine, naturally.

“Shh shh, Sven, it’s okay,” Anna coos, petting the enormous dog under their feet.

But Elsa stands (barely upsetting Olaf). The move makes Anna yelp, too. “Kristoff,” Elsa says seriously, feeling defensive without a certain reason why. “What was your prompt?”

“Look, Elsa,” he starts. “I don’t want to do it, but really, I don’t think you should look.”

Meanwhile, Anna tries to stop them both, jumping up from the couch, “Gosh I’m tired! Maybe we should call it quits for tonight, huh?”

“Kristoff—”

“C’mon doggos, let’s get up!”

“Please, I really don’t want—”

“Show me the—”

“Oh Olaff! And Gale! Being sleepy friends! So cute! Look!”

“It’s really not—”

“Where is the paper, Kristoff?”

“DON’T YOU DARE!” Anna launches herself between her sister and her boyfriend as though to protect him.

“What is it, Anna?” Elsa says, crossing her arms and her brow. “What’s the prompt?”

“It’s me!” she shouts, wild-eyed. After a pause, during which Kristoff and Elsa look questioningly at each other, she continues. “I wrote my name on it. I thought you or I would get it, and it’d be funny, but watching Kristoff do it is maybe not okay.” Her grimace is pained, convincing…

Shaking her head, Elsa turns from one to the other. “Seriously?” Had she actually imagined the worst-case scenario—that somehow they had guessed her secret—from a place of closeted paranoia? She can’t help but grin a little, thankful that she hadn’t let herself show what she wasn’t ready to disclose. In any case, it's time to go home for the night, so she scoops up Gale to take to her carrier.

^*^*^*^

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah Anna lied


	7. Day 30: Monday

^*^*^*^

**Day 30: Monday**

“Anna…” Today’s a class day, not work day, and classes aren’t until afternoon, so why Kristoff’s even attempting to talk to her this hour of the morning is beyond her (whatever hour that might be).

“Hm, whap? Wazzit babe?” Anna moans, eyes still closed enough that only a sliver of daylight filters in to her consciousness. She feels Kristoff shifting beside her in bed, so she snuggles closer to him, her absolute safety. Through a yawn, she asks, “Whas gone on?”

“It’s happening. For real.”

“Mmm whass hapnin? Hamilton come to town?” she muses, eyes still closed.

“No, Anna,” Kristoff says, and the low tenor of his voice immediately worries her. Not enough to un-snuggle from his chest, though. “Not Hamilton. Real people are coming to town, whether you— _or_ _Elsa_ —are ready or not.”

Her mind takes off like a rocket, her eyes launch open, even as her body otherwise remains completely motionless. Anna hisses, barely audible, “Fuck!”

“Yeah! I tried to stop it, I did, but yeah,” Kristoff says beside her, very audibly. “We sure are fucked! Capital F for failed, Fucked! Elsa is going to kill us.”

“How much time do we have?” she asks, sitting up at last.

“Ehh, hold on, let’s see…” Kristoff groans, wincing as he types into his phone. They sit together in silence. After several seconds, his phone vibrates, and they both flinch, checking the screen. “Ohhhh,” he shudders. “Okay.”

“It’s going to be fine!” Anna insists, looking from Kristoff to his phone and back. “We can make this work! We have quite some time!”

“ ‘Quite’?”

“Yes, a good bit.”

“Anna, how could we possibly make this work?”

“We…” she says, eyes losing focus but pointing a finger at Kristoff with all the enthusiasm of a far more prepared woman. “We… We will… Step up our efforts to encourage Elsa—”

“Bad idea,” Kristoff interrupts. "Like that prompt last night."

"No yeah, absolutely, I should not have written 'lesbian' as a prompt. Still, we should encourage her—”

"Bad. Idea."

“Shush, to come out to us as soon as possible! Then we can say it’s a coincidence that—”

Kristoff counts on his fingers. “One, she is not going to tell us anytime soon. Two, she’ll resent the interference, even if she does tell us soon. Three, she's too smart to think it's a coincidence. Four—”

Anna crosses her arms, glaring at his pessimism and/or realism. “You want her to kill us or not?”

“You’re right, yep.”

“The question is how,” she admits, sinking back down, pouting her lip as she thinks.

Shifting off the bed, Kristoff mutters, “Good luck with that. I am not the one for that task.” Anna tosses a pillow at his head as he swings a bed robe on. “Ow!” he chuckles.

“You started it! Just like that romcom we watched last night, um—” she snaps her fingers, thinking, then her eyes brighten and she snaps just once more. “Oh, I got it!”

^*^*^*^

Elsa sweeps down the back of her skirt as she stands from her desk, demurely nodding her head at her boss’s guest. “Right this way,” she motions, opening the door of luxurious solid wood to the office in question. As the broad man enters, Elsa double-takes at a short, auburn-haired woman just behind him, waving at her. “Anna?” she asks, cueing her sister to jog up to her. “What are you doing here?”

“I thought I’d visit you for lunch! As a surprise!” Anna’s already taking her hat and mittens off, holding up a large paper bag.

Checking her boss’s door is closed, Elsa folds her hands in front of her. “Anna, dear, I appreciate the surprise but don’t you have classes today?” She peeks at the clock on the wall behind her desk. “In an hour? You came all the way downtown when—How are you going to get back in time?”

Laden with the bag of take-out food and all her winter layers, Anna smiles brilliantly at her. “Nothing to worry about! No time like the present!”

“But Anna,” Elsa insists, motioning to her desk, “I am currently, actively working, I can’t take my lunch break whenever I want.”

Their eyes meet, and Anna smushes her lips together, puffing up a bit. Elsa knows the expression all too well, the adorable frustration of her impatience. It’s a look completely unique to Anna, and unbeknownst to her little sister, Elsa’s completely weak to it. “Well, can we eat at your desk?” she asks Elsa.

Deflating, Elsa agrees, nodding.

“Great!” Anna drops the bag on her desk—entirely too close to her computer—and tosses her outerwear over the back of Elsa’s chair before racing off the steal a chair from somewhere and wheel it over.

Sighing, Elsa shakes her head at herself, pressing fingers to her temple, gets the feeling she’ll be having a headache later. Nonetheless, she rearranges Anna’s clothes, then the desktop, sits with her fingers interlaced, elbows resting on the desk by the time Anna settles in on the other side. As her little sister unpacks the paper sack of thick sandwiches, chips, and sodas—from their childhoods’ favorite deli—Elsa gets the distinct impression that she’s being buttered up. However, Anna doesn’t say anything immediately, smiles as she digs into her chicken sandwich, so Elsa reserves judgment.

Through her food, Anna asks, “How was the commute this morning?”

“Fine,” Elsa says, smiling slightly suspiciously at Anna while delicately unwrapping her own sandwich, “Same as ever.”

“Good!” Anna says, takes a sip of her soda. In the light, Elsa notices that she can tell through its paper cup that her sister already consumed half of the soda. _Perhaps that’s all there is to it,_ she thinks. Finally taking a bite of the sandwich herself, Anna pipes up again. “Funny story, we—Kristoff and me—were going to watch a movie on Hulu last night, but we-we couldn’t find it in the watchlist, that is, not until we realized we weren’t on _our Hulu profile_ —”

Elsa freezes, from her heart to her skin, her head to her toes, not even able to keep chewing.

“—b-but yours. Isn’t that silly?” Anna speaks, and Elsa hears it, hears the shrillness, the thickly layered cheerfulness, the rehearsed sensation of the words.

Kristoff and Anna saw her current watchlist, her viewing history, her attempts to find media to guide her through her… time of self-discovery, of coming out to herself and—eventually, it was going to happen eventually—everyone else. Her 'awakening,' as it were.

“Must have gotten it switched last time you slept over after charades, right? I mean not last night, but maybe last weekend? Who knows! Oh, shoot!” Anna’s chair scrapes against the floor, at which point Elsa can finally move again, turns wild blue eyes to her sister who is standing up from the desk and swinging her coat back on.

“Y-You’re leaving already?” Elsa asks, standing as well.

Dressing up, sandwich hanging out of her mouth, Anna nods hurriedly. “Yeah you were totally right, class is soon so I gotta go, but we’ll talk soon!” she announces, waving happily at Elsa. Standing, her fingertips pressing into her desk for support, she slowly waves back after Anna. “Bye! Love you!” Anna shouts, jogging for the elevator, blows her some sisterly kisses.

There Elsa stands after Anna’s departure, still as a statue, until the gentleman from earlier leaves her boss’s office, offers a small wave. “Oh! H-Have a good day, sir.” She shakes her head at herself, smooths the back of her skirt as she retakes her seat, looks down at her sandwich.

^*^*^*^


	8. Day 47: Thursday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a scene that is mature (the second flashback), but probably not in the way you think

^*^*^*^

**Day 47: Thursday**

Overcast dawn light filters into the small bedroom. Honeymaren enters already up and dressed, careful not to disturb Yelena, asleep in one of two twin beds. She quietly places her guitar back in its case, locks it up, then the same for a microphone. Taking a seat on her own bed and pulling her phone out of her pocket, Honeymaren glances over to the nightstand between the beds, notices the wallpaper is peeling a little around the window. When her gaze falls upon her smart phone, her breath catches in her chest.

_You told yourself you would,_ she reminds herself, slowly breathing. Unlocking it, she eventually opens the Youtube app. Honeymaren plugs in her earbuds to listen to the duet she recorded in one take roughly a month ago. Elsa’s voice is still beautiful, breathtaking each and every time she hears it. Shaking her head, she rolls her eyes at herself in the video. Then, after checking her notifications (and there are many), she goes to her unpublished drafts. Yelena stirs nearby, but settles. Still, she’ll be up soon. 

She hits the post button. Takes a deep breath, holds it as her feet twitch in her boots against the ground. Exhaling loudly, she stands with a loud slap to her own thighs. Yelena stirs, but she ought to be getting up shortly anyway.

“Ryder?” Honeymaren calls as she leaves the bedroom. Turning the hallway corner into the main room, Honeymaren finds her brother in his pajamas, spread-eagled across the pullout couch, hiding his face under a pillow at the sound of her voice. Chuckling at how boyish he looks, she reaches down to tickle an unprotected foot. He whines, immediately jerking away from her hand. “You ready?”

“No,” he groans. “Obviously.”

“Get up, we got a lot of road ahead of us. You can sleep in the truck, I’ll take first shift.”

From the other room, Yelena’s bed squeaks, and they hear her call out, “Ryder! Do what the woman says…”

He groans loudly back, “Yes, Yel.”

“Keeps her distracted from me,” Yelena finishes.

“Heard that.” Honeymaren smirks down the hall, crosses into the kitchen to start a pot of coffee. In no time, Ryder’s up and hunting for his bag while Yelena takes first dibs of the bathroom (second dibs after Honeymaren, technically). Eventually she switches out with Ryder, comes out to the main room to complain about his mess, folds up the couch in his absence, then complains again in response to Ryder reopening it to grab his pajamas from the tangled mess of the sheets. While they squabble, Honeymaren throws some bacon and eggs on the stove.

“Now are y’all ready?” she asks, smiling as Yelena and Ryder start hitting each other with pillows.

“Yeah, yeah,” Yelena says.

“Wait one more!” Ryder grins, hitting Yelena again. He laughs as she tries—and fails—to mess with his hair. But they both move toward the kitchen bar, accepting two plates from Honeymaren.

“Smells good, kiddo.”

“Thanks, Mare.”

She shrugs, still smiles, taking her place standing and eating from a plate on the kitchen counter.

“Hey, Yel, I was wondering what you think of this,” Honeymaren says. She pulls open her weather app, zooms out, passes her phone to Yelena for her consideration.

Not responding immediately, Yelena makes a face once she's found her glasses and looks at the screen. “That looks like a mess.”

“What does?” Ryder asks, leaning over.

“There’s a storm brewing, see,” she says, pointing to the radar. “It’s not on your route yet, but it will be by tomorrow.”

He looks perplexed. “What’s that mean?”

“It means, I don’t like it,” Yelena says, poking around a bit before handing the phone back to its owner.

“Is it that bad?” she asks Yelena, who nods to the side just once.

“No, no, but we have to go!” Ryder insists, big baby blue eyes darting from one woman to the other. “Schools! Mare’s already worked on applications! Sat for a GRE!”

“And you’ve also applied to one or two up that way, I know,” Yelena assures him, finishing off her bacon. Her eyes turn to Honeymaren over the rim of her glasses. “If you don’t want to be delayed, you’re gonna have to be early.”

Chewing on her cheek, Honeymaren nods. “I was afraid you’d say that.” When Ryder turns his head to the side, shrugs his shoulders, confused, she explains, “We’re gonna have to drive through the night, instead of over two days. Might still get hit with some storm, but not too much.”

“Shit.” Both Yelena and Honeymaren nod in agreement. But in any case, their plates are empty, so they all get back to work.

^*^*^*^

Elsa shakes herself out of it, out of getting lost in the digital photo album from the volunteer trip again. Getting lost looking at her and Honeymaren posing by the bathroom, them in a selfie with Tyler in the finished bathroom, Honeymaren pretending to examine caulk, Honeymaren sitting on the side of the bathtub she installed while Jenna and Tyler stand at attention on either side. She has to giggle at that one; Tyler asked her to take it.

Still, she has work to do, and Elsa rolls her shoulders as she returns her attention to her computer screen. This particular university’s application website has a lot of outdated features, making it easy to get distracted, either by her phone or Gale trying to climb onto her computer for a warm nap. At this point, Gale has at least accepted the compromise of napping in Elsa’s lap, instead.

A little later while she attempts to spell check her work, Elsa’s phone rings. She picks it up—Anna.

“Hey, Anna,” she says, using ear buds to keep her hands free to type. “How was your day?”

“Elsa, hi!” Anna starts. “Oh um, good. I dunno, the coffee shop didn’t burn down.”

“Good,” Elsa agrees with a giggle.

“Hey, I wanted to ask you something. Are you free tomorrow night?” She expects a quick rundown of their day, a typical call from Anna most days, but something about her little sister’s voice gets her to turn away from the computer, even stop petting Gale.

“Yeah, anything for you dear.” Technically, Elsa had planned to try going out to a gay bar tomorrow night, just to try it, but she kept planning to visit a gay bar on Friday nights and finding reasons not to make that leap. Anna was easily the best excuse not to go thus far.

“Great! I know you’re supposed to host charades and dinner for us this week, and on Sunday, because we do that on Sundays, but Kristoff and I wanted to invite you over for dinner… Would you like to come over?”

Her brow pinches together at the tremor in her sister’s voice. “Of course, Anna. Is everything okay? With you and Kristoff or school or anything?”

“Hm? Oh, yeah, we’re great! Why?”

The tenor of her voice returns to Anna’s usual upbeat tone. Elsa relaxes a little. Just enough to pet Gale again, who groans at her with annoyance. “No reason. Any fun customers today?”

“Oh, so many!”

Later, when the sisters finish their check-in, Elsa stares at the phone for a minute, biting her lip. Anna wasn’t quite all right. At least when it came to _her,_ Elsa. Catching herself quickly, Elsa snaps her fingers a couple times, annoying Gale but also stopping herself from going down that line of thinking. The act also brings a recent memory to mind.

^*^*^*^

_Anna snaps her fingers to the beat of a song playing on her phone as she gathers her things around her apartment. Elsa stands in her coat, fiddling with her keys in her pocket as her sister dances around her kitchen. “This is_ your _shopping trip, isn’t it Anna? Let’s go.”_

_“It’s Saturday! What’s the rush? Besides, this song is catchy!”_

It certainly is, I’ll have it stuck in my head all day, _Elsa thinks to herself, only a little sarcastically. At last, her sister follows her out into the hallway and they walk toward the stairs._

_“I gotta look this up, what is this?” Anna says as they walk, playing the song again from the beginning. “Let’s see here… Huh, ‘Closer’ by Tegan and Sara.” She shows her phone to Elsa, wiggling her eyebrows at Elsa. “They’re cute, huh?”_

_“Sure,” Elsa says with a shrug._

_Playing with Elsa’s loose hair while going down the stairs behind her, Anna asks, “Have you ever considered cutting your hair short before?”_

_“No, I’m fine with my usual. Why, are you?”_

_“Oh, I don’t know about that, just curious!” Anna asserts, letting go of Elsa’s hair._

_“Think about it,” Elsa says over her shoulder. “You’d look good with a bob cut.”_

_“You ever hear of them before?”_

_“Hear of bob cuts?”_

_“No, silly. That band, Tegan and Sara,” Anna explains. “You have such good music taste, so I figured you might know their music already!”_

_“Maybe, I’m not sure,” she says. It’s not a lie, inasmuch as keeping herself to herself because she is her business and no one else’s. Not even Anna’s, yet._

^*^*^*^

She shakes her head at the memory, smiling a little. Elsa pats Gale to warn her, then stands up to stretch. Over the month and a half since she’s begun… ‘coming out to herself,’ Elsa has realized how jumpy she still is after all these years, even with therapy to help. A few weeks ago, she nearly had a breakdown over Anna mentioning Hulu— _Who does that?_ she thinks, chuckling at herself.

After that particular incident, though, she realized that Anna couldn’t possibly know that she’s gay. Anna is incapable of discovering Elsa’s very gay Hulu watchlist and only mention it only in passing. Since then, Elsa notices all sorts of things that she _could_ construe as hints or suspicions from others, and she’s learning to notice these things, then let it go. Especially with that _other_ shopping trip with Anna last week.

 _Just like therapy taught me,_ she reminds herself while reaching into the freezer for some chocolate ice cream. _I have every right to be proud of myself._

^*^*^*^

_“Where are we even going?”_

_“I can’t tell you, it’s a secret! Okay? Okay!” Anna whispers, dragging Elsa by her wrist down an unfamiliar street at an unfamiliar subway stop in the cold, a few snowflakes dropping here and there in the early evening._

_“Why are we keeping secrets?” Elsa asks, amused._

_“Because! I said so!” Anna insists seriously, but her nose crinkles, hinting at a giggle. “And who doesn’t like surprises?”_

_“Me,” Elsa reminds her with a chuckle, pulling her hand from Anna’s grasp and shaking her wrist. “I do not like surprises.”_

_“Right. Of course! Naturally, I know that. About you, you… silly, shy, creature!” Anna says at last, sidling up to her sister, hugging her side and poking Elsa’s stomach to get another laugh out of her. She knows how to ham it up for Elsa’s sake. “Come on, we’re almost there.”_

_Anna runs ahead of Elsa to the corner at the end of the block, jumps in place and poses for Elsa’s enjoyment as she calmly walks after her._

_“I’m hurrying,” she calls to her when Anna’s pose changes to something more impatient. However, once she passes by the shop’s windows, Elsa’s eyes widen in growing shock, looking with ever more terror from the paraphernalia to the neon sign above the windows to her little sister. “No… No, no, no, noooo! Anna!”_

_“Elsa?” she teases, reaching for Elsa’s arm._

_“No, absolutely not!” Elsa shouts, her pointer finger upright between them as though she was lecturing Anna about borrowing her boyfriend’s car and crashing it—again. (Not a good day in raising-a-teenager-as-a-teenager.) “I am not entering this shop, this building, this whole vicinity, do you understand?”_

_“Oh, yes you are!” Anna purrs, smug, sweeping Elsa forward with another side hug. “You might see something you like!”_

_“There is nothing—” Elsa announces, pointing at the door she’s being ushered toward, “—that I could possibly want—” her eyes widening with every inch as her bellow turns to begging, “—that I would be willing to purchase_ here _, in front of_ you, _my little sister, Anna!”_

_And that is how Elsa found herself standing by the door while Anna browsed, insisting that she knew what she was looking for, inside a sex shop. It’s warm inside and smells like a pumpkin spice candle, so she stays inside. On one side of her, there’s a curtain separating the window displays from the shop itself, protecting the identity of guests. On the other, a nondescript couple, indescribable because of their bulky coats, shop quietly but inching closer and closer to her. Elsa keeps her eyes trained on the ground. The strangers' shoes step further and further into her field of vision, though, and at last she can’t take it, speeding away toward the back. Anna’s auburn hair stands out and she sets her trajectory._

_“Excuse me!” she whispers forcefully, shoving her face into Anna’s face. “What are doing? You said you knew what you were looking for! In and out, five minutes!”_

_“I mean, I do know what I’m, you know, looking for!” Anna says, clearly tickled by Elsa’s discomfort. “I just, ya know, like to look around when I visit a shop.”_

_“Why?! In this kind of shop, and with your sister? Your ‘guardian,’ for that matter!”_

_Humming with barely contained delight, Anna replies, “Partly, this reaction.”_

_“Anna!”_

_“And obviously, to encourage you, ‘kay? We all gotta live a little, okay?”_

_“Yes, but do we—together—have to spend so much time learning specifically how other people ‘live a little?’”_

_Crossing her arms, Anna’s mouth shrinks with irritable disappointment. “Elsa, pick one thing. Anything. Early birthday present, go on.”_

_Aghast, Elsa stutters, “A-Absolutely not!”_

_“Correct, except for the ‘not.’ We’re not leaving until you do, just grab a book if you must.” With that, she grabs Elsa’s shoulders and literally turns her round, then pats her back. In that moment, Elsa’s certain she’ll never blush again, because surely whatever cells in her body make that happen are all completely fried to oblivion now._

_Maybe if she were here with… someone… this could be pleasant, or fun, or at least not humiliating. This is decidedly not the case right now. In the end, she grabs a pack of batteries—her vibrator at home probably maybe needs a backup. Anna glares at the generic item but shrugs in defeat. She takes the pack from Elsa and marches to the store clerk with some cushioned handcuffs also in hand—something Elsa nearly gags at the sight of in her little sister’s hands._

_Standing alongside her sister as the items are wrung up, the clerk looks at the pair with a brief pause. Motioning to the cuffs, the white woman with ten times as many piercings as Elsa has asks, “Are you two together? ‘Cuz there’s a special sale—”_

_“Wait what?”_

_“No…”_

_“NO WE ARE SO NOT!”_

_“OH GOD!” Elsa literally gags. “WE ARE SISTERS!”_

_“SISTERS!” Anna shrieks, donning a grimace that would make a jack o’lantern envious. “SEE THE MATCHING FACES! MEMORIZE THEM BECAUSE NO! I exist to torture her!” she enunciates like it’s in her job description._

_Nodding through her disgust, Elsa agrees, “Torture, she’s a nightmare! Absolutely not!”_

_The clerk waits for them both to stop, blinking slowly from the handcuffs in her hand back up at them, without any other reaction. “Okay.”_

_By the time they’re out the door, though, Elsa and Anna are in hysterics._

^*^*^*^

Remembering it now, Elsa giggles to herself, finishing off her bowl of ice cream. As wild an experience as that was, she knows her little sister. There’s no way Anna could be suspecting that she was gay and _not_ outright ask her about it after something like that happened. So she’s in the clear to explore things as she sees fit for herself.

Elsa puts her dishes in the washer, about to get ready for bed, when her eyes catch the computer screen. She pauses, considering. While looking at the college application pulled up, it occurs to her that she hasn't looked for Honeymaren's Youtube account in a while. Her eyes fall to her phone, on the kitchen counter between her and her desk. Slowly, her face settles as she makes a decision.

She picks the phone up, hits the dial button, breathes deep.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Anna, listen. I want to tell you something."

^*^*^*^

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> regarding the 'mature' scene (if you didn't read, Anna takes Elsa to a sex shop, and neither of them crack despite a little hilarity that ensues, including the shop clerk asking if they're a couple):
> 
> I intend this scene as a gag, especially given Elsa's canon 'yucks,' but also as a reference to when the band Tegan and Sara—identical twin sisters who are both lesbians. When they got one of their first big interviews and the cishet woman interviewing them asked them if they’d ever had sex together, and they described this interview later as really traumatic. As a gay fraternal twin myself (us being afab and amab) and having been assumed to be a couple by cishet folks before, it is the kind of horrible that you have to laugh about, because that is how heteronormative (assuming a 'boy' and 'girl' spending time together are a couple) & homophobic (assuming gay siblings would engage in incest simply because gay) the world is. But if it happened on live TV, I think I would want to either die or murder. While bawling. It would absolutely be horrifying.
> 
> ALL OF WHICH IS TO SAY THOUGH - I don't mean that gag as a knock to Elsanna shippers, not trying to yuck another's yum, as long as such a ship is engaged with emphasis on the fiction, the fact that incest in real life is NOT okay, and associating incest with LGBTQ people in particular is part of a very large aspect of homophobia and lesbophobia specifically.


	9. Day 48: Friday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Buckle up! Keep your arms and legs within the vehicle at all times!
> 
> quick note: I don't know that Hulu profiles work this way (anymore), but shrug  
> also I still hate writing singing, but it's canonically their THING, so I tried!

^*^*^*^

**Day 48: Friday**

A stout woman with glowing black skin brings a carafe of coffee to Ryder and Honeymaren’s table at the truck stop. While Honeymaren yawns enormously, Ryder lifts his face from the table and looks up at their waitress, mutters earnestly, “Thank you so much for existing, ma’am.” She departs with a smile before Honeymaren closes her mouth.

“Shoot,” she says through the tail-end of her yawn. “I wanted to ask about the forecast.”

“Sis, you gotta stop,” Ryder mumbles, throwing his head back against his side of the booth. “It’s my turn to drive anyway.”

“Wait, did we order food?”

He nods silently.

Quietly, but alas, not in her head like she planned, Honeymaren mumbles, “Shit, what did I order?”

“Pancakes.”

“Really?”

“No, I don’t know, I think I ordered pancakes. I thought about pancakes.”

“How are we going to keep driving?” Honeymaren asks, laying her face on the table. Her braid has become disheveled, and much of her hair falls in waves around her.

“With this!” Ryder asserts, straining the sit up and grab the coffee pitcher. As Honeymaren reaches for it too, he lightly slaps at her hand. “A-tut, hey, no! No more coffee for you, you need sleep.”

“Need so much more than sleep,” she mumbles, face to the table again. Peeking back up at the sound of Ryder pouring his mug of caffeine, she wears her saddest expression possible. “Just a little? To keep me awake for food?”

His upper lip twitches, and he sighs. “Only a little—and I’m pouring it, the rest is going in my thermos.”

“Deal.” She turns her face to her phone, barely above the table, about the check her Youtube account when their waitress returns. Immediately she sits upright, muttering, “Sorry, ma’am.”

“Nothing to apologize for, sweetheart,” she assures, placing syrup and hot sauce on their table ahead of their order’s arrival. “Where y’all headed?”

“Forever hours away,” Ryder moans, pulling his map out of his jacket pocket.

“Hmm, a real map, that’s good.”

“Only because she insists,” Ryder says, pointing at Honeymaren, who merely nods.

“Ma’am,” she does say, leaning forward on her elbow, “would you happen to know the weather report for the area today?”

Leaning to Ryder’s side, she peeks at their route. “You’re headed north? Yeah, it’s supposed to be clear most of the day along here. We’ll get it pretty bad here by the time I’m home from my shift, but you two should be out of the way by then.”

“Then we’ll get there by dinner time!” Honeymaren says with a smile, tired though it is. Sleepy butterflies flutter in her chest.

Ryder shrugs with a grin. “We can get city take-out!”

“Thanks so much, ma’am. Drive home safe tonight,” Honeymaren says, remembering that they’re guests.

Her favorite echo, Ryder does the same, says, “Yes, thank you kindly, ma’am!” Feeling her eyes droop with the assurances of food, sleep, and safe travels, Honeymaren smiles across at him. Maybe her little brother was right all along.

^*^*^*^

Anna lays in bed, watching Kristoff slowly wake up beside her. He blinks slowly, smiles softly when he sees her. “Hey, baby.”

“Morning,” she says softly. Leaning forward, she kisses him, short and sweet. They sigh in each other’s company.

“So,” he says at last.

“Today’s the day we die.”

He chuckles, kisses her this time. “No one is dying. Ryder and Honeymaren—”

“Honeymaren, Honeymaren,” Anna whispers to herself, practicing her name. She’s the reason this woman is coming all this way to look at schools, she better be able to say her name right.

“They won’t be here until late tonight. Elsa will come over for dinner, we’ll celebrate with her, and we’ll come clean.”

“Right,” she nods along, hanging on his reassuring eyes.

“We’ll explain, we’ll apologize,” Kristoff says, sounds increasingly sure of himself, of their plan.

Interrupting him, she whimpers, “I really thought I’d get her to spill sooner.”

“I didn’t hear that.”

“I took Elsa to a sex shop! If anything could break her, surely that would be it!”

“I don’t want to hear that,” Kristoff groans, but his upturned lips betray his amusement.

“Sorry! Sorry.”

“We still apologize,” Kristoff reiterates. “Just like we were planning to anyway before her call last night.”

“Right, right, right. You’re right!”

He nods along. “She might get upset.”

“Because we lied and interfered in her life and betrayed her trust and went around her consent.”

“R-right,” Kristoff agrees, wincing a little. “But Elsa’s a reasonable, kind person who will appreciate the apology… Right?”

“Oh, of course!” Anna agrees, her brow nonetheless crinkled with concern. “Okay, we can do this.”

“We can do this. And we need to get ready for jobs.”

Smirking at him a little, Anna says, “Oh drat!” They both get up, feeling better.

^*^*^*^

“Gale, please—whup!” Elsa scolds, sliding in her heels across a water-splattered floor, thanks to her cat playing with her water bowl, now empty. Righting herself, she glares round for the maker of mischief herself, hears her claws. Glaring but smiling at Gale’s white paw playfully clawing at air from under the couch, Elsa muses, “You’re lucky I have work today or I’d show you trouble.” As things stand, she cannot delay by getting out one of Gale’s favorite toys and running about the apartment with her, and instead Elsa quickly dumps a can of cat food in the appropriate bowl and refills the dish for water. Shrugging on her coat by the door, Elsa hears her phone vibrate, fishes it out of her pocket:

**From Anna:** Don’t forget, see you at 6! We’ll celebrate!

The pause to look at the message gives Elsa a moment to look up at herself in the mirror by the door.

Curious, Elsa lifts her hair up, tucks it behind her head, snorting softly to herself as she imagines what Anna would do if she _did_ cut her hair short—lesbian-short. _That’d be funny,_ she reflects with a smile. She drops her hair and rushes out the door—she can do her hair up on the train. “Don’t touch my stuff!” she shouts back to her cat, same as every day, locking her door.

^*^*^*^

By the time Ryder’s taking his seat belt off, pushing himself out of the driver’s seat, Honeymaren’s already gotten out of the pick-up, walked round to his side, and stands waiting on him where they’ve parked in a fast food joint’s parking lot. “Hustle up, buttercup!” she encourages.

He groans in response. Slowly, he rolls out of the seat, catching himself on the handle to keep from falling onto the pavement. “So much driving.”

“If you move faster, you can nap sooner,” Honeymaren reminds him, impatient. “And we’ll get there faster, too.”

Once she’s certain he’s steady on his feet, slow though they may be, Honeymaren excitedly climbs into the driver’s seat. While she waits for Ryder to shuffle round the truck and get into the passenger route, she checks the route and the weather on her phone. “We might still get some of the storm at the end of it, but it looks like we’ll get there pretty early!”

“Uh-huh,” Ryder moans quietly from his seat.

“You’re spent, huh, sport?”

He groans in response. She shifts the truck into reverse, pulls forward and into the drive through line, decides impulsively to get them some coffee and a midday snack for them both. “Hey,” she asks, “What do you want? Ry?”

Ryder snores softly in the passenger seat. He didn’t even get his seatbelt on. Honeymaren kicks him sideways.

“Mhm! Uh—caffeine… sandwich…”

“Right,” Honeymaren chortles, pulling the truck forward. After she orders, she looks her weather app over. “You told Blondie Boy that we’d be there early tonight, right?” When she looks over, Ryder’s asleep again, leaving Honeymaren to sigh through a grin on her own. She puts the truck in park, reaches over to fasten his seat belt. _Let him sleep,_ she thinks. _For a couple hours_.

And… according to Ryder, anyway… surely, they wouldn’t be invited to come so far without Elsa having changed her mind about Honeymaren, thinks maybe she's worth the risk. Surely, Honeymaren will gather up her nerve this time around. This time, Honeymaren won’t leave her hanging.

^*^*^*^

Elsa climbs out of the subway stop at a jog, rushing forward to the florist at the top of the stairs. She gets a couple bouquets, thanks them for their extra time after their closing—after all, Elsa left work early to be sure to stop there on her way to Anna’s. Carefully, she tucks the floral arrangements into her purse as the wind blusters past them.

With such a strong suggestion of inclement weather, she hustles in her heels to Anna and Kristoff’s apartment building. The doorman waves her in with a smile, and she returns it on her way in.

When they hear the knock at the door, Kristoff and Anna catch each other’s eyes. “That’s her, she’s early!” Anna frets quietly as Sven barks, walking toward the door. Olaf barks, too, much less authoritatively though.

“Nothing to worry about!” Kristoff assures her from his spot pulling out pots and pans. “We got this!”

“We got this, we got this,” Anna repeats, rolling her shoulders and stretching her arms. “Born for this, I was _born_ for this!”

“Take it down a notch,” Kristoff suggests. “Tonight’s about her.”

“Yes!” Anna agrees, pointing at him as she hurriedly finishes setting their little table. Sven keeps barking. “It’s about Elsa! And about Elsa being a wonderful— _forgiving_ —just plain giving person!”

The last four words catch Kristoff’s attention. He watches Anna walk to the door, thinks about how grateful he is for his gingersnap, his feisty love, about how he couldn’t be with her if not for—

“Elsa!” Anna shrieks jovially when she opens the door. They hug as though they hadn’t seen each other in years, swinging each other back and forth. Sven and Olaf immediately stop barking, sniffing curiously and wagging their tails at the familiar friend.

“Hey, sis!”

“Ooo,” Anna admires, “Are those new shoes?”

“No, I've had them. I dressed up for you two,” Elsa says with a wink, giving Kristoff a nod. He looks busy in the kitchen doing something, and a wave of happiness at the domestic cheer he brings to this space with Anna.

“You didn’t have to do that,” he tells Elsa.

“Shush.” She takes off her coat, careful to hang it up without hitting the dogs, and she reaches into her purse.

“Oh, Elsa!” Anna keens as her sister hands her a bouquet of flowers, mums and marigolds for the autumn season. “You didn’t have to do this!”

“I wanted to,” she says, grinning in Elsa’s small way. "Don't worry, I got myself some, too."

“I'll have you know that I would have gotten you flowers myself! I should have!" Anna says. "Okay, okay, hold on, come here." Holding the flowers in one hand and dragging Elsa over to kitchen with the other, Anna reaches into the refrigerator behind Kristoff. Elsa drops her purse on a seat at the nearby table as she awaits whatever Anna’s got in store. It must be something special since Kristoff stops what he’s doing and dries his hands off on his apron. Next thing she knows, Anna emerges with a bottle of sparkling wine.

“What’s all this?” Elsa asks through a nervous, flattered laugh.

“It’s celebrating, that’s what it is!” Anna says, giggles. She sounds a little nervous, too, like she did on the phone last night. Elsa shrugs a little, flattered and shy, yet smiling to reassure her little sister. “We are going to do something special for a special time!” Anna insists.

Stepping toward Anna and laying a hand on her shoulder, Kristoff turns to Elsa with the softest smile. “We’re really proud of you, Els.”

“Thank you,” she says softly, afraid to hear her own words make it all real. Telling them about her plans made it feel real last night, but now it’s really real. It's good, but nerve-wracking. As such, she refrains from offering to help Anna to open the bottle while juggling the flowers, lets Kristoff to offer the favor. With a soft pop, their celebration begins. All three giggle as they pour glasses, poorly estimating how much to pour in each glass.

“A little more?”

“No that’s plenty.”

“What? No, look it’s all foam, here!”

“Anna, the flowers.”

Laughing, the sisters both grab the falling bouquet, place them in a vase that Kristoff provides from a cabinet.

“Okay, okay,” Kristoff chastises the sisters. He clears his throat again once they each have wine in hand and are free of the bottle or the flowers. Biting his lip, he rises his glass in front of them both. “To Elsa!”

“To Elsa!” Anna repeats, cheerily.

“Oh no,” the guest of honor replies softly, hiding half her face behind her hand.

“Oh yes!” Anna says. “Tell her Kristoff!”

“Again,” he says. “We’re really proud of you.”

“And we’re excited about your future!” Anna interrupts.

Blushing, she’s sure, Elsa tries to hide her face further, but can’t without both hands. And one hand holds wine. So she silently raises her glass to the toast, eyes smiling behind her one hand.

“To the most incredible sister ever,” Anna says, her second hand floating on her chest as emotion grips her. “Elsa! Thank you for telling me… us…”

“I figured,” Elsa says with a nod toward Kristoff.

“Well yeah, of course I told him,” Anna agrees. “But not the point! To Elsa! Who told us her special secret—she’s going back to school, baby!”

“Here here!” Kristoff cheers.

“Like a badass!” praises Anna.

“Thank you, truly,” Elsa says through a sheepish grin. Lifting her glass to her lips, soft bubbles coat her mouth, accompanied by dry citrus, leaving her both sated and thirsty for more. “That’s delicious, what is it?”

“Cava,” Kristoff says with a shrug. “I dunno, it sounded nice.”

“It’s excellent. Now, how can I help in the kitchen?” Elsa asks.

“Oh no, not this time!” Anna chastises, a playful gleam in her eye. She waves Elsa off. “We are making this dinner for you, silly! Why don’t you go watch a little TV while we finish this up, then I want to hear about every single school, every application! But for now, shoo!”

“All right,” Elsa chuckles, dodging as Anna grabs a towel off Kristoff’s shoulder and waves it at her threateningly. She enjoys another whiff of her wine as she walks over to the couch, followed by the dogs, snuggling close to her once she sits.

Behind her, Anna watches Elsa, smiling. But her eyes fill with tears, which Kristoff notices. “Hey,” he says quietly, reaching his arm round her back to her shoulder, “It’s going to be okay.”

“I know,” Anna replies, her voice low in volume and tenor. She wipes a finger carefully at her eye, looks to Kristoff with a questioning look; He nods—her make up’s still good. “I mean, I just love her so much, you know?”

“I know. Me too,” he says with a smile, kisses her temple. More softly, his lips staying near her ear, her hair. “Let’s finish making dinner. We’ll still apologize, and make as big a deal about getting her degree as possible.” He ends on one more kiss, and they return to their tasks in the kitchen.

Meanwhile, Elsa busies herself with figuring out the remote. Remotes. Every time she visits Anna and Kristoff’s apartment, she ends up re-teaching herself how they all work. The distracting amount of bluster to the wind outside acts as an additional distraction, as well as the dogs begging for attention. Altogether, she struggles for five whole minutes just trying to get the damn thing on, and when the television finally blips to life, Elsa restrains her mini-celebration a moment late, pumping her fist and spilling a drop or two of wine. She moves to the ‘smart’ remote (a title she finds presumptuous, but she prefers books to television). At least it makes getting to Hulu easy. The app loads, presents profiles to choose from.

Except there’s only one profile available, ‘Kristanna.’

That’s odd, because surely her profile should pull up. After all, Anna had told her that whole story about stumbling onto her profile on accident. She never got around to removing her account from their TV after that because of the remotes. Every time she had been over the last several weeks, Elsa can’t remember even being allowed to handle the remotes—probably because of her struggles with them, but still.

Had Anna really seen her profile after all? Her (gay af) watchlist? Why would she lie about that?

“Anna?”

“Sis?” Anna calls back. Looking up from mincing garlic, she brushes her hands off quickly and walks toward the couch from the kitchen. “Do you need help with the remotes?”

“No, I think not,” Elsa says, standing, glaring down at her wine with confusion. When she looks up at Anna with this look, her sister stops in her tracks as if struck. Elsa chews her cheek a second. “Anna, about a month ago you brought lunch to my office unannounced.”

“That sounds right.”

Elsa can’t help but notice that, despite Anna’s cheerful face, the sound of Kristoff’s chopping has stopped. Even Olaf and Sven are oddly still and quiet. “And you told me about having accidentally opened my Hulu profile and seeing my watchlist.”

“Right,” Anna says, listening but not following Elsa’s direction.

After a swig of her wine—a concerning amount by the looks of Anna’s reaction—Elsa’s arms cross self-consciously over her chest. “Because I pay for both our accounts.”

“Which I am grateful for!” Anna announces, still smiling. She can tell something is off, but Elsa still doesn’t see the sign she’s looking for, the indication of intentional wrongdoing.

“However,” Elsa says, studying her glass of wine and thereby removing her eyes from Anna for the first time during this exchange. She pauses, lifts her eyes sideways to Kristoff in the kitchen. As she feared, he flinches, caught watching the confrontation she’s mounting. Next, she turns a thoughtful glare to Anna. Her sweet, cheerful, brave little sister with auburn hair. Who now sees the trouble brewing for her. “You will notice that my profile is inaccessible on your device here. And without being the profile’s owner, it cannot simply be deleted from your device. That would require a profile's password.”

“Oh.”

“So either you guessed my password to delete my profile, something I believe you would have told me—” Looking Kristoff's way, his wincing face is enough proof for Elsa that this suggestion is not the case.

“Right.”

“Or,” Elsa says, swirling her glass and pursing her lips. “My profile was never opened on this television to begin with.”

“Right,” Anna agrees, her eyes widening and her grin faltering.

“And yet you claimed to have seen my viewing history recently.”

Softly, feigning surprise poorly, Anna offers a small, “Oh yeah.”

At this moment, Elsa openly passes her glare toward Kristoff, feeling defensiveness rise in her stomach. “More likely, however, is that you lied about seeing my account at all, or that you guessed at my password on another device—such as a smart phone…” Anna’s eyes bulge out of her head. Lacking all discretion, Elsa raises her brow at Anna’s obvious feeling around for her phone on her person. But she’s wearing a dress, and Elsa knows that Anna does _not_ prioritize pockets on her dresses the way that she does. In fact, she knows exactly where Anna’s phone is. Without announcing her destination, Elsa walks to the little table by the front door, right by the kitchen. Both Kristoff and Anna watch her with bated breath. Indeed, there she finds the phone in question, picks it up, walks back to her sister. At long last, Elsa finishes her thought, saying, “And you deliberately hacked my account for an unstated purpose.”

Anna visibly gulps. Elsa holds the phone out in her hand such that the only part of it that’s accessible to Anna is the main button, the spot to place one’s fingerprint to unlock it. She grimaces blatantly, eyes darting between the phone and Elsa. When her big sister neither balks nor flinches, Anna looks to Kristoff. He looks about as trapped as she feels. But looking at him does make her feel brave enough to face the repercussions of her actions. Glancing sideways, she spots her wine glass. Certain that this is the day she dies, she marches away from her big sister quickly, grabs her wine, marches back. Staring Elsa down in return and gulping down her entire glass, Anna offers her thumb. Elsa blinks rapidly at the sight, but remains still.

The phone unlocks. Each sister meets the others’ eyes, Elsa ready to unleash the fury of her hurt and Anna ready to accept the fire. They stare at each other a moment, until Elsa at last navigates Anna’s phone, finding the Hulu app. As she expected, her own account opens instead of Anna’s. Displaying her findings, with titles such as 'Portrait of a Lady on Fire,' 'Killing Eve,' 'Tangerine,' 'This Is Us,' and even 'The L Word,' Elsa holds the phone up to Anna first, then Kristoff. Catching her sister’s eyes once again, Elsa gulps down her own glass, marches to the kitchen, takes the bottle out of the refrigerator, refills her glass, and gulps that down, too. Carefully puts the bottle down on the counter, near the minced garlic and onion. Sure, that's why hot tears bubble just under the surface.

Upon her return to the Anna’s afraid, defiant eyes, Elsa shows her the phone in question again. Calm, yet irritated that her voice waivers with emotion, she says, “Look at this phone that I paid for and is on a family plan that I pay for. I have never used it myself, and yet my private, personal information appears to be on it against my will.”

Frozen to his spot in the kitchen, Kristoff whimpers, “Oh shit.”

^*^*^*^

Ryder stretches happily as they walk down the sidewalk. “It feels so good to be out of that truck! And look at this place!” He looks up at the sky, soft snow falling in abundance, made radiant by the light of the street lamps and tall buildings. “It’s beautiful!”

“It’s okay,” Honeymaren says, grunting a little as she shrugs her bag up to a better position on her back. She points up at the snow, mild for her but buffeting the locals by the looks of things, and says, “Main point is we made it before this turned into a real mess on the road.” She's sick of talking about the weather, knows she's doing it because she's anxious about something else a lot more and needs to let the energy out. Truth be told, she’s excited to be here. Although the city looks quiet from what she’s heard of such places, it bustles pleasantly. It is pretty, she’ll admit to herself (and only herself). Most importantly, they’re approaching their final destination. Maybe her personal destination, too.

Did Elsa really hope to see her tonight? Did she really have a chance to tell Elsa that she’s thought about her every day and night since they met? To tell her what she wanted to a month ago, that she really liked her and would have kissed her more, wants to kiss her more, if given the chance?

“Here we go!” Ryder shouts happily, jogging toward the entrance to the apartment building, its address highlighted by lights. He jumps excitedly in place, startling a straight couple passing by. Noticing them, Ryder says, “Hi, how are y’all?”

“Ryder!” Honeymaren chastises (despite a grin of her own). “This is the city, don’t go saying hi to everybody!”

“But it’s friendly!”

“Not here, it’s weird,” she instructs. Not that she knows from much experience, but she reads. They descend a few stairs to a lobby, the doors to the building opening automatically. That shouldn’t be startling, but it is a little bit. Honeymaren glances Ryder’s way, then leads them to the front desk.

The brightly lit lobby, all white, hurts her eyes a little after so much driving, even in the dark during the last hour. A pale man with short, cropped white hair that curls slightly, wearing thick, shaded glasses looks up at them from his place behind the desk—he's an albino. Looking to the name plate at the side, Honeymaren clears her throat. “Excuse me, Mr. Marsh?”

“How can I help you?” he says simply.

“We’re here to stay with Anna and Kristoff…” She turns to Ryder, asks, “What are their last names?”

“Bjorgman!” Ryder says. “Kristoff at least, I don’t know Anna, so. Do you know Elsa’s last name?”

She gives him a threatening face, because no, Honeymaren does _not_ know Elsa’s last name— _Maybe don’t rub that in right now in front of management!_

“Ahh, you’re a little early,” Mr. Marsh comments, looking over a notebook.

“We wanted to get here before the snow,” Honeymaren says, smiling best she can. Her heart races nonetheless, fearful of being unwelcome out here. But the man simply nods, makes a note in the book and on a scrap piece of paper on his desk.

“Very well,” Mr. Marsh says. “Sign here,” he instructs, passing Honeymaren the notebook. Pointing to the side, he says, “Elevators are to your left, eighth floor. Turn to your right, and their apartment is at the very end of the hall. You won’t miss it.”

“Thank you,” she replies, simply.

As she leads Ryder to the elevators, he lifts his hands like he’s surrendering and smiles big at Mr. Marsh. “Thanks!” Walking behind Honeymaren, she can hear the grimace in his voice. “Ugh, why did I do that?”

“Beats me,” she says, hitting the up button.

When they get to the eighth floor, an extra pep reaches Ryder’s step. However, Honeymaren takes one step off the elevator and freezes. It takes her brother looking back at her and coming back for her to even realize she’s done it. “Hey,” he says, jogging back and holding her hands in both of his. “You okay?”

Honeymaren, quick and small, nods. Swallowing a little, she looks up into Ryder’s eyes, finding comfort there. “This is… She wants to see… It’s okay that we…”

“Yeah,” Ryder says, pulls her closer to hug. They both close their eyes as he wraps his arms around her neck and she round his waist, despite their bags. He sways them side to side gently, comforting Honeymaren as best he can. When they pull apart and he sees her shy smile, her watery eyes, he assures her, “Everything’s gonna be okay, sis.”

“Okay.”

Taking up the lead again, Honeymaren holds tight to Ryder’s hand and leads them both down the hall. They ride the elevator in silence, jitters get the better of her, and kindly, Ryder holds her hand tight until the bell dings and they exit onto the eighth floor. Yet, as they approach the door at the end of the hall, she can’t help but notice… noise… Elevated voices, indistinct. Dogs barking. The closer they get, the more often Honeymaren’s gaze darts to her brother, the more uncertain he looks. At the precipice, the brother and sister stand side by side, looking to each other, doubt clouding their shared gaze.

^*^*^*^

A quiet knock at the door. Elsa immediately turns toward the hall, looking at the door with an unformed question in her mind. Her argument with Anna—and Kristoff, whether he’s spoken much or not—pauses in her mind. Why on earth would anyone be knocking on her little sister’s door at this time on a Friday? Protective urgency needles through her anger at being outed against her will, leading her to the door.

“WAIT!” Anna shrieks behind her, and a hand latches to Elsa’s wrist. Looking at Anna’s grip on her with shock, she glares back at Anna, fear and anger mixing chaotically within her. And Anna must see it, because her grip loosens slightly, allowing Elsa to yank her arm away.

“No, Elsa hold on!” Kristoff shouts behind them both. She even hears him jogging after her as she approaches the door, opens it.

Honeymaren. (And Ryder.)

Less than a second passes before she slams the door shut in front of her, just barely making eye contact with them each beforehand. Swiveling on her heel, Elsa shouts at the couple she now _hates_ , “WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY DOING HERE?!”

^*^*^*^

She slams the door in their faces. Kristoff (and, presumably, Anna) stand just behind her, but the door shuts too fast for Honeymaren to register their expressions. Elsa—she thinks—shouts, and the only thing she’s certain of is ‘what the fuck’ was part of it.

Rushing blood, thunder in her ears.

Honeymaren staggers backward as though struck by a weapon. She can see her brother, but only faintly. He’s turning to look back at her, he speaks, but Honeymaren hears nothing. Comprehends nothing.

^*^*^*^

“Elsa, I can explain!” Anna shrieks, tears finally spilling out her eyes and ruining her make-up.

“I need _him_ to explain!” Elsa yells, also crying, shoving a finger toward Kristoff.

Before she can stop herself, Anna spreads her arms out as though to shield her boyfriend, even as he attempts to walk forward toward Elsa. “Don’t blame him, it’s my fault, Elsa!”

“No, no, it _is_ my fault," Kristoff insists, blubbering but not crying. "And I’m so sorry, Elsa!”

She can’t hear them, not really.

It was one thing to find out she had been discovered—or rather, interpreted by Kristoff, which Anna then discovered—against Elsa’s desires. It is brutal to learn that her privacy, her personal life, had been disclosed without her knowledge or consent, even within her own family—especially to her only family. To go from that messy betrayal so swiftly to the image of her own biggest mistake, her worst misunderstanding, her greatest embarrassment as a newly self-affirming woman, to see the woman she assigned her homosexual desires to without _Honeymaren’s_ consent… Honeymaren never asked for that. _Why and how could she be here?!_

^*^*^*^

Honeymaren can barely breathe. Aware vaguely that she’s sitting down in the hallway, that an older Black gentleman with a goatee stands in the doorway next to her, tries to comfort her, that her brother is pounding on a different door and shouting at it. Nonetheless, tears finally overwhelm her eyes, spilling over her cheeks and down off her jaw. Her hands try to comfort her, try to hold her body together, but everything is spilling over, all the worst-case scenarios, every insult.

A few of the stranger's words reach through the sound of her racing heartbeat. "Breathe with me, kid. Halima, it's okay but she needs help. Easy kiddo, breathe slow with me."

Suddenly, Honeymaren stands, resolute.

“Whoa!” the comforting stranger gasps, surprised by her speed.

^*^*^*^

It all washes over Elsa in a second. By the next second, she can hear Anna and Kristoff properly again, as well as Sven and Olaf. But she doesn’t care. Elsa walks away from the door, hooks her purse over her arm, eyes on her destination, her ears ignoring all sounds. Without a word, she crosses the room, opens the window, climbs out onto the fire escape, and starts marching down.

Behind her, above her, she hears Anna call out, “Elsa!”

“Uh, babe?” Kristoff calls, returning his attention to his and Anna’s front door. As desperate as he is to comfort the _love of his life_ , he can’t help but notice a familiar voice raising just outside their home. He glances Anna’s way once more, and she’s looking over her shoulder at him, crying. _Oh, babe!_ he thinks, his heart clenching. Nonetheless, a man pounds mercilessly on their door, and Kristoff must answer if he hopes to keep that door on its hinges.

When the door at which Ryder pounds opens suddenly to Kristoff and (he presumes) Anna, he pulls his fist back roughly, though he nearly stumbles at the change of momentum. Righting himself and shaking himself a little, Ryder puffs up as much as he can to face the bear of a man that is Kristoff and shoves a finger in his face. “What the hell, man?! What’s going on here?! How dare you invite us here to just—!”

“Honeymaren!”

She hears her name in a woman’s mouth, giving Honeymaren the slightest pause. Despite the way her chest groans, Honeymaren continues walking away, wants to find the elevator and get out of here.

“Wait! Wait, Honeymaren, wait!” Anna cries again, shoving her way past Ryder and running past Mr. Mattias, leaving Kristoff to apologize to them both. Catching up, she takes hold of the front of this stranger’s shoulders, taking her appearance through her own watery vision. “Please!” she begs Honeymaren, walking backward as she continues marching forward. “Please, it’s my fault, she didn’t know you’d be here—”

“Let go of me.”

“Please, please!” Anna begs. “I’m so sorry! I was afraid I’d hurt her, but I can’t let you both leave her broken-hearted, please!”

“Get off.” Honeymaren growls softly, swiping her arms up to slowly dislodge Anna from her. Not too rough, she's clearly upset, too, but Honeymaren _needs_ to leave. Glaring into the sad face of a woman who _must_ be Elsa’s sister, she tells her with a sad, cracking voice, “I shouldn’t have come here at all. I should have known Ryder and y'all were nothing but lying pranksters. All y'all made a fool of me, and her. Your own sister!” Her voice blubbers at the end, her mouth a wavering line as tears start spilling out of her. Unsure of how she’s been betrayed but certain of it nonetheless, Honeymaren sneers, unable to look at anyone in that hallway. “She didn’t want me before and she doesn’t want me now! Your sister feels nothing for me, and you dragged us here, driving two days straight for what?” The look on the auburn-haired woman’s face crackles, angry and sad and guilty, crying right along with Honeymaren. She leans against the hallway wall, making way for Honeymaren’s escape. Standing taller, her brown eyes baring all her pain to this stranger, Honeymaren sighs, groans, “I don’t know why I came here when I knew she didn't want me.”

One, two, three paces past Anna, and a voice shouts from the end of the hall: “I know she does!” Stunned, hurt, mad wild, Honeymaren turns on her toes, scowling down the hall, where she sees Kristoff holding his phone aloft. Her brother watches Kristoff with surprise, even a little awe, leaving her wondering what he can see that she can’t.

Kristoff meets her eyes, waits for Honeymaren to breathe, to really see him. Blinking back his own tears, he smiles gently. “And I can prove it.”

^*^*^*^

_Why did I do this?_ Elsa thinks, hands squeezed tight under her armpits to keep her warm. _I could have grabbed my coat before I left._ Snow falls around her, not too hard but uncomfortable nonetheless when the wind blows through the streets and alleys. The wind, she's none too fond of right now. Cursing herself, Elsa presses on.

Her mind races from thought to thought, her heart overwhelmed.

Anna and Kristoff had guessed a password of hers—she’s already changed it from her phone. They figured out her sexual orientation without her knowledge or consent. Presumably, they had known for weeks. Perhaps even during the trip to the Smoky Mountains, one of the two of them knew. Or else why would _she_ be _here?!_ They brought Honeymaren—and her brother, Ryder, who made every possible awkward thing happen to Elsa during that week away—to their home. This is why they invited her over for dinner, to surprise her with this insult and injury, to see the face of a woman she crushed on so _hard_ , a woman who tried her best to let Elsa down easy.

Somehow this was all her own fault, but Elsa hasn’t quite puzzled out how. Not beyond a good general rule to not trust people ever. But she should have been able to trust Anna!

People pass her by, all in a rush to somewhere warmer. Each of them eyes her, and it makes everything that much more of a wreck.

_Where am I even going?_ Elsa wonders, watching her feet. Clearly, she hasn’t walked to (or even toward) the subway, so not home. Walking in the cold weather feels good, though. It’s shocking her system, keeping her anxiety from blowing up into a full-on panic attack. She’s staying in the present, as best she can.

_But maybe don’t freeze to death,_ she tells herself, spotting a coffee shop that’s open nearby. She rushes in after the cold wind makes her yelp and quickly orders a hot chocolate. Once she finds a secluded corner, Elsa sinks into a chair and lets her tears out as quietly as possible.

During all of this, Elsa has heard her phone vibrating in her purse nonstop, calls she ignores. Sipping on her hot chocolate offers a little comfort as she wallows in her misery, in her inevitable difference, in her destiny to keep supporting her little sister while… _Slow down,_ she tells herself, remembers her therapy. _Your feelings matter, but don't lie to yourself._ No, Anna did not _mean_ to make a mockery of her. Elsa can admit that much. What she and Kristoff meant by all of this, she can hardly tell, yet she cannot assume it came from ill will.

A flash plays in her mind: Honeymaren’s face, turning to her with recognition, then a flash of fear as the door slammed shut. _No ill will, yet you hurt people!_ Elsa tells herself.

The phone buzzes once, catching her attention. Elsa looks around the café, noticing only two other customers beside herself. Cautious, she reaches into her purse, pulls out her phone. As expected, she finds multiple missed call notifications, mainly from Anna. Kristoff made one call, though, followed by a text message. A link. She purses her lips, defiant, then chews on her cheek. Although dubious, Elsa unlocks her phone and opens the message, hitting the link as she fishes her ear buds from her bag and puts them on.

After a gratuitous wait using the café’s wi-fi, Youtube pops up at last, and she gasps. The video Kristoff sent her is of her and Honeymaren. Her eyes drink up information—the account name, the name of the video, the description mentioning a special message at the end. She wipes at her eyes furiously, notes the publication date—less than a week ago.

Her breath catches as she hits play.

It’s the duet she sang with Honeymaren a month ago.

When her own ‘solo’ comes up, Elsa can’t help but watch Honeymaren. _“I have never known sleep like the slumber that creeps to me. I have never known color like this morning reveals to me. And you haven’t moved an inch, such that I would not know… if you sleep always like this, the flesh calmly going cold.”_ The whole time, Honeymaren watches Elsa. Even in Elsa’s inexperience and doubt, she cannot hide from the unabashed want in Honeymaren’s brown eyes, the sheer daze the woman’s in, captured on digital film with incredible lighting.

Honeymaren’s perfect alto voice joins, taking the cue as a sign to close her eyes. _“And we lay here, for years or for hours…”_

 _“Your hand in my hand, so still and discrete,”_ Elsa sings in the video, and she spots herself glancing to Honeymaren’s hands, busy with guitar strings.

Again, Honeymaren joins in, closing eyes clearly pointed at Elsa’s face. _“So long, we become the flowers…”_ Then alone, she continues, and again Elsa sees herself discreetly bite her lip, watching her… her partner. Honeymaren sings still, _“We’d feed well the land and worry the sheep.”_ Their voices mingle further, and Elsa feels as though stabbed through the chest, watching herself and her obvious, ardent onlooker. How didn't she see it then? A great tenderness drizzles into that metaphorical stab wound, feeling the words in a new sense. _“After the raven has had its say: I’d be home with you. I’d be home with you. I’d be home with you! I’d be home with you! I’d be home with you…”_

The song wraps up, yet the video plays on. Honeymaren addresses viewers directly, her brown eyes shining with fear and a sturdy, lying grin on her face. She outright says that, if they hadn’t guessed from watching the video, she is gay. Doesn’t apologize or explain, beyond saying that _she_ , _Elsa_ , made her, _Honeymaren_ , want to be brave. Guessing from the background, this part of the video was recorded away from the volunteer center, outside Honeymaren’s apartment there. There are a lot of dislikes… and a lot more likes.

She must have waited all this time to post it, adding the final message more recently.

When it ends, another video queues up, a little red ring slowly forming around a button on the video—an even more recent video. Elsa only realizes that she’s crying again when a tear falls onto her phone's screen. But she doesn’t touch the phone at all. Next thing she knows, Honeymaren sits on a porch in a rocking chair with her guitar casually resting in her lap. It’s grey light, a little misty, but not the volunteer center’s porch at all. Gently rocking herself in the chair, the brunette starts to play a simple song, a cover of some ‘Katie Pruitt,’ according to the title. Then she sings.

_“If loving’s her a sin, I don’t wanna go to heaven. No, there’s nothing else up there I could need, and if I’m sinnin’ every day, guess I’ll sin all seven—if I can still have her by the end of the week._ ” Honeymaren howls, open and wide, unafraid of her microphone or the sounds of wildlife in the dawn light. It must be dawn, because a pink and yellow and purple light slowly graces the porch and the woman sitting on it.

_“You see, I used to be ashamed to write a song that said her name, 'cuz I was too afraid of what they all might say. But if loving her is wrong and it’s not right to write this song… I’m still not gonna stop—You can turn the damn thing off!”_

Elsa’s whole heart howls with Honeymaren, watching the sun rise against her skin, her beanie, her guitar, her eyes, her whole self. Because with her whole self, Honeymaren sings this song, with such ferocity and grace that Elsa cannot think of anything but what her eyes and ears tell her.

_“If loving her hurts, I’ll keep on hurtin… If it means staying true to who I am. You may not agree, but like me, you’re learning… that people don’t like what they don’t understand…_

 _You can say it’s wrong, you can say a prayer, but while you’re doing that I’ll be over there!_ _Loving her…_ ”

^*^*^*^

Sighing, her tears finally spent and her body too tired to try convincing by other means, Anna finishes her explanation, saying, “I never meant to hurt her. I love my sister with everything I am and everything I have. If not for her, I can’t imagine surviving the last several years of my life.” Sweet and kind, Kristoff reaches for her, wrapping his arms around her as she sits on the back of the couch. Facing Honeymaren and Ryder who both lean against the kitchen island, Anna’s eyes carry all the sadness of the tears she’s run out of, and she finishes her apology by saying, “I shouldn’t have done what I did, I shouldn’t have invited you into this and risked your well-being, both by traveling and-and emotionally. I should have stopped all of this so much sooner. If you both want, I still want to show you around the universities you’re looking at, as the least I can do. But…” Her eyes lower to her absent-minded hand petting Sven, sitting at her side, while Olaf naps on the couch. “Well, whatever you decide to do, I don’t blame you.”

Glancing sideways at her brother, Honeymaren tells him, “You gotta work on your apologies.”

“I said sorry!” Ryder hisses under his breath. If Anna or Kristoff hear him, they don’t act like it.

Exhausted but feeling a little relief at last, Honeymaren smirks his way. “Prove it!”

Without a knock or any other announcement, they all hear the front door open, gently tapping against the hallway wall. Everyone freezes. Honeymaren’s first thought is serial killer because it’s the city, but she also knows that’s not how serial killers work. Hard to say, because it’s not every day she shows up at a stranger’s home bearing her heart on a platter, has it smashed, then finds herself receiving the most thorough and thoughtful apology she’s ever heard in her life.

Before she turns round herself, Honeymaren looks up at Anna and Kristoff’s faces. Complicated emotions play out on their faces: Regret and sadness, hope and searching. In a word, yearning. All in a mere second. Deep in her chest, ricocheting up her neck and down her spine, Honeymaren also feels yearning. She turns, and there Elsa is, walking toward her, ocean eyes grabbing her like a riptide. “Elsa," she gasps.

"Elsa! I—!”

A hand lifts, stopping Anna in an instant. Elsa’s eyes stay trained on her, Honeymaren. Her own eyes sweep down and up Elsa, she can’t help it, taking her in—black dress cuts off at the knee, heels, raindrop pearl earrings, her hair up in some elaborate French braid-meets-bun, made messy by the weather. She looks incredible.

And terrifying. At least, terror grips Honeymaren’s heart, gets her hands to worrying at each other, and makes her mouth groan soft when Elsa reaches for her hands, pulls her toward the window. Only then does she realize Elsa’s carrying her coat over her arm. She takes the hint at the window, climbing out onto the fire escape after Elsa and shutting the window behind her. But when Honeymaren turns to where the woman in question was just standing, there’s no one there. She looks up the fire escape, spots Elsa climbing the stairs.

“Elsa!”

Honeymaren launches after her, catching up fast and following her to the roof. Once there, she realizes immediately, “Elsa, you’re cold!”

“I’m fine,” Elsa huffs, burrowing into her coat as snow falls upon them both. They’re guarded by the surrounding buildings at least, but the poor woman shivers visibly.

“You’re not!” Honeymaren protests, and before she knows what she’s done, she steps close to Elsa and wraps her arms around the woman, holding her tight. Hoping she might never need to let go. They stand there in the glowing silence of snowfall for a while, silent except for their shared deep, shaky breaths.

“I’m sorry, Honeymaren,” Elsa whispers at last.

“Don’t be,” she assures her. “I think I’ve gotten more explanation than you’ve got at this point.” Honeymaren pulls back slightly to look at her, but finds herself stuck in place again. Something about Elsa seems to do this to her, maybe to people in general. “Elsa, I… I shouldn’t have come here, I'm sorry.”

“Stop,” Elsa whispers, tucking her hands forward, upon Honeymaren’s chest over her Carhartt jacket.

“Elsa,” Honeymaren says soft. Tries to warn her, because Honeymaren's hands are naturally falling to Elsa's waist. Glancing up again at those sad, blue eyes, Honeymaren’s courage finds her at last. “Listen to me.”

Biting her lip, Elsa nods ever so slightly.

“I didn’t hope I’d ever get to see you again, much less…” She swallows hard, feeling her mouth dry out. “Speak to you… again. I… What I wanted to say to you before you left, I wanted to say so much more.”

Elsa hangs on every word spoken by Honeymaren’s perfect, full lips, watching her eyes like she could sink into them.

“That is, I always knew who and what I am,” Honeymaren says through ragged breaths, having never admitted it out loud before, except to Ryder. And her followers online. “And I always knew that’s the way things are, that to live meant to… to accept myself and to accept that nobody else would. And…” She bites her lip, reaches up to Elsa’s cheek. Feels her cold, hot cheek press into her hand so soft. Rubbing her thumb over Elsa’s cheekbone, Honeymaren continues, “I didn’t, I don’t want you thinking that I didn’t want you back.” She shuts her eyes, afraid.

Elsa’s hands grab hold of Honeymaren's coat. She presses her forehead against Honeymaren’s, and she closes her eyes at the contact. The arm still wrapped round Elsa’s waist holds her tighter, even as it shakes. After a few minutes, Elsa gathers the strength to speak, asks, “You wanted me back?”

“I _want_ you back,” Honeymaren answers immediately, quietly, nudging her nose that small distance closer to Elsa. “You think I’d yell at a bear for anybody?” A small, wild laugh escapes Elsa, leaving Honeymaren drunk on it, smiling in the heat of Elsa’s grip. Part of her can only picture Elsa out in the country, laughing like that through the mountains, even as Honeymaren shushes that part of her brain to focus on the present. “Look, I’m dumb and I’m young,” Honeymaren confesses, emotion getting the better of her voice. “It’s so, so stupid that I came all this way to look at schools—”

“I applied to schools,” Elsa confesses in the quietest whisper. “You, H-Honeymaren, you made me want to, to try. Here and… um, other places.” She stops herself from admitting that she finished an application last night to a university nearer to the volunteer lodge.

A tiny whimper resounds in Honeymaren’s throat, bare. Elsa hears it, bites her lip at the sudden strength of her desire. At last, less than an inch from doing so anyway, Honeymaren asks Elsa, “May I kiss you?” With an even tinier whimper and a nod, Elsa agrees.

Slow as she can, Honeymaren leans her lips forward. Elsa, too, leans forward, blood rushing in her ears until at last, their lips meet. First, they barely touch, and Elsa feels a snowflake or two hit them, melting. Maybe it’s the snowflakes that do it, though, because they press their lips together again, firmer and surer. Then, they’re pressing so close together that their arms fight to hold the other tighter, their combined breath creating a warm mist around their faces.

In this moment, found at last, Elsa can distantly admit to herself that she will, at some point, forgive Anna and Kristoff. And maybe Ryder.

^*^*^*^

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Helen, who I never came out to c:
> 
> This WAS going to be the ending, but we need extra fluff this week so I'm gonna write another chapter ASAP


	10. Denouement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No warnings.  
> It's fluffy with minimal editing, that's all I gotta say. Goes from like low-key fluffy to FLUFF fast.  
> Because you deserve it. I deserve it. We all earned it.  
> It's late 2020 and everything is FUCKING TERRIBLE, so enjoy.

^*^*^*^

**Denouement**

Alas, it is too cold.

Eventually Elsa stops kissing Honeymaren on the roof of Anna’s apartment. Speechless, they both nod at the fire escape, agree in the silence of falling snow to climb back down to the apartment, find the lights on high. Honeymaren opens the window and climbs back in, but Elsa remains outside, silent as the snowflakes.

Anna stares at her. Honeymaren—yes, that is definitely her name—grimaces a little, turning from her to Elsa, stock still on the fire escape. From what Anna can tell, she seems nice. Definitely in it to win it if she and her brother, Ryder, really drove two days straight to get here. Plus, what little the woman said to her in Elsa’s absence convinced her that she mainly came here to see Elsa, and visiting schools was just an excuse. The traveler sticks her head back out the window. “Are you coming in, or…?”

Elsa blinks rapidly, seeming to come out of a trance. “I…” She returns her gaze to the window, just briefly enough for Honeymaren to notice. Then she shakes her head once, barely.

Seeing her snuggle in to her coat further, Honeymaren swallows quick. “Which purse is yours?”

“It’s blue.”

Honeymaren swivels around, taps her head against the top of open window. “Ow!”

Ryder, Kristoff, and Anna, all remain stone silent and stare at her as she ducks back inside, grabs the blue purse from a countertop, jogs to her own bag. In retrospect, loading up bags meant for backpacking trips might not have been in her and Ryder’s best interest. With the weight, Ryder steps over and offers his sister a hand before she even asks for help up. Palm to palm, skin to skin, eye to eye, Ryder and Honeymaren meet. And in the split second—maybe a whole second—she sees in his eyes his promise to see her through, his apology for interfering, his hope for them each to be themselves and be happy.

She doesn’t look back at Anna and Kristoff as she runs back to that window, that fire escape. Elsa and Anna’s eyes meet, in a way, watching Honeymaren. At last, looking into Anna’s eyes and loving her sister, Elsa recognizes how she failed herself, how she failed to care for or even acknowledge herself over the years. Even though that choice—all the little choices that built up Elsa’s self-denial—is by no means Anna’s fault, it is time for a change. And in her messy, intrusive, immature way, Anna was trying to kick Elsa out of that habit.

Clambering back outside, Honeymaren reaches for her and Elsa helps her up. They share a glance, something timid and excited. Elsa can still see the stars in these brown eyes, can see the seeds that she planted there over a month ago growing into fierce trees and bright flowers and resilient weeds and vicious earthquakes. And she hopes to god that those earthquakes swallow her whole.

They descend the stairs together. All the while Anna watches her sister depart. Slowly, Kristoff approaches her, nervous because he can’t see her face from this angle. “Babe?” he asks quietly, reaching his hand out to caress over her shoulder. “You okay?” 

Quietly, almost imperceptible after all the yelling and crying earlier, Anna whispers, “She didn’t kill us.”

“Huh? What’d you say, Anna?”

“She,” Anna begins, turning slowly. Her voice escalates word by word into a shout, “… didn’t _kill_ _us!”_ With a laugh and a leap, Anna wraps her arms around Kristoff’s neck, and he instinctively holds her close, laughing along with her. Groaning, squealing, she repeats herself, “Elsa didn’t kill us, holy macaroni! I _really_ expected to be murdered, and we are totally not literally dead! Hahaha!”

In the meantime, Ryder has fallen asleep on the couch, snuggling up to the dogs.

^*^*^*^

_This is fine, completely and totally fine,_ Elsa thinks, trying to calm her racing heartbeat. Beside her, Honeymaren navigates her pick-up truck through the city streets with ease. When she suggested driving them to Elsa’s home instead of using public transit, Elsa had fretted internally only to realize, firstly, that Honeymaren knows how to drive a truck on narrow mountain roads and can be trusted to drive in the snow, and secondly, that Honeymaren’s older model of truck didn’t offend city living with any overbearing, unnecessary size.

Meaning her nerves are entirely about being so close _to_ Honeymaren, in _her_ car, in her own city, headed back to her own home. Without warning. _Fucking Anna._ She wonders if she ought to make Honeymaren wait outside while she cleans up a little when they arrive.

“Are you allergic to cats?” Elsa asks, interrupting their tense silence. (They realized early in their drive that neither of them knows the local radio stations, so Honeymaren shut it off. Also, that Elsa cannot be trusted to give driving directions without assistance from a smart phone, given that she largely travels by train or bus.)

“Cats?” Honeymaren asks, her eyes darting sideways at Elsa through the dark. “No, not cats. Penicillin, though.”

“That’s inconvenient,” Elsa comments quietly, easily.

“Only if you make a habit of getting infections.”

“Do you make a habit of getting infections?”

“No,” Honeymaren says, and Elsa can hear the smirk in her voice, “I prefer injuries.” She’s certain that ought to frighten her. Instead, Elsa feels herself relax into a strange excitement.

“What kind?” Elsa asks, dares herself.

“Wha… What do you mean?” Honeymaren asks, glancing from Elsa to the road to Elsa again until they reach a red light. “I get injured at work a lot. Like that wrench I dropped on my knee, remember that?”

_Oh God!_ Elsa thinks, realizing she didn’t mean _that_ in _that_ _way!_ She chuckles nervously through closed lips, hopes it’s dark enough that Honeymaren can’t see her blushing furiously—

“Do _you_ prefer injuries?”

Elsa’s blush goes from mad to fierce in record time. Eyes wide, jaw dropped, she looks back at Honeymaren, whose smirk positively gloats. At last she breaks, laughing, shyly rubs her shoulder, her bent arm hiding her face from Elsa—except for her laughing grin. “Sorry,” Honeymaren says through a chuckle at last. “It’s just with the red light, you looked _really_ red, like 'Cheerwine' red.”

The traffic light changes; their drive continues.

Still recovering, Elsa lets her frazzled energy out in a nervous laugh, which gets Honeymaren snickering again. That, in turn, gets Elsa to relax some, laughing genuinely alongside her for the next two blocks. “I’m kidding, honest,” Honeymaren says, grinning. “I, uh, I never did any of _that stuff_. _”_ She clears her throat, fusses at her coat a moment, straightens her shoulders.

Curious. Considering her a moment, Elsa gives Honeymaren directions quietly, chews her lip. Soft, gentle, she asks, “Do you… have other preferences?”

No immediate response, not in words. Yet Elsa does see a few things. Honeymaren’s eyelashes flutter several times, she bites her lip and glances at her hands. Clearing her throat again, Honeymaren speaks a touch higher than usual. “I… would not know from experience…”

Her voice turns further upward at the end, like a question. _‘Is that okay?’_ Elsa surmises. When Honeymaren holds her eye contact, her jaw slightly strained, Elsa just barely nods, quiet. Honeymaren seems to understand, turning back to the road and sighing, smiling easy.

“What about you?”

Inhaling sharply, Elsa makes herself face forward. The effort forces her lips into a thin line, and she can’t help a couple sideways glances from the corner of her eye. “I…” she starts. Stops. Her whole mouth has gone dry. But she can’t leave Honeymaren waiting on an answer this long, not if _she_ already said… never with nobody…! “I have some… _very limited_ experience of a… bisexual nature.” Elsa, too, ends her response like a question, grimacing already, thinks Honeymaren must be braver than she is because she _cannot_ meet her gaze. She feels her body tighten, clench around itself, freezing in fear of how this relative stranger might react.

A hand lightly touches her shoulder. “Okay.”

Now, at the sound of a voice so calm and accepting, Elsa must look. Honeymaren keeps her eyes on the road, brings her hand back to make a left turn. Her face carries a relaxed smile, gentle and assured. Once the truck’s straightened out, Honeymaren’s brown eyes find her, full of starlight.

She smiles in relief, feels a wave of trust.

Same page.

Sudden and fast, Honeymaren adds, “Not that experiences are necessary!”

“No, of course not!”

“Nobody _needs_ to have any preferences—!”

“Or experiences!”

“No, absolutely!”

“Totally fine!”

“Never—”

“Wait, never?”

“I mean, not _never_ -never.”

“Never pressure!”

“Exactly!”

^*^*^*^

Staring herself down in the foggy mirror—Elsa’s bathroom mirror, where she, Honeymaren, has now taken a shower _surrounded_ by fancy soaps, elixirs, that all smell like Elsa—Honeymaren takes a deep breath. A lot has changed in a few short hours. Her brain buzzes around like… bugs that fly in groups… _What was I doing?_ she wonders, glancing down. She spots her toothbrush in one hand and her cell phone in the other.

“Shit, right!” she mutters to herself. Quickly she sends a text to Yelena, leaving out _all_ of the details beside arriving safely at their destination and getting into bed shortly. By the time Honeymaren’s finished brushing her teeth and put on her pajamas, Yelena responds: A sleeping cartoon bear GIF.

Suppressing a chuckle, the memory of screeching down a _real_ bear comes to mind. _I’ll never live that down,_ she thinks. Glancing back up at herself in the mirror, she furrows her brow but smiles at herself. _Especially now!_ When she opens the bathroom door, the first thing she notices is how the apartment she thought looked pretty and neat when she followed Elsa in looks noticeably cleaner. The next thing she spots is Gale—Elsa’s all-white long-haired cat—sitting patiently right outside the bathroom. Her fluffy tail twitches. Next thing Honeymaren knows, a full-grown cat has leapt her entire human height, onto her shoulder. She gasps, leans forward slightly on instinct, waits for the cat to adjust position while Honeymaren adjusts to the prick of retracted claws on her skin.

“Don’t tell Anna,” Elsa says, eyes like stormy seas watching her from under a bundle of blankets on the couch. When she doesn’t respond, Elsa stands up and carefully replaces the blankets. She explains, “Gale has a new favorite.”

“Are you not her favorite?” Honeymaren asks with a smile, standing upright again and reaching up for Gale to sniff her hand. But she gasps, sharp and quiet, when Elsa walks her way.

“Perhaps.” She, too, lifts her hand for Gale to sniff, then push her adorable cat-face against said hand. A hint of a smile crosses Elsa’s face. Although she’s trying not to, Honeymaren’s pretty sure her own face looks up at Elsa’s the same tender way it did on the video that she published online for the world to see. Perhaps sensing this, Elsa brushes her own loose, platinum hair back from her face, shrugs shyly, saying, “I made up the couch for you.”

“Shit,” Honeymaren chuckles, sheepish. “Again, I am so sorry they sprung all this on you.” She returns her hand to Gale since Elsa’s retreated.

“It’s not for you to feel sorry for,” responds Elsa, simply.

“But the shock, the inconvenience, the damn gall! And—”

“Don’t ever call yourself that,” Elsa says sharply. Surprised, Honeymaren considers her face. It’s her turn to look sheepish, her pale hands clinging to each other suddenly. “Sorry. I don’t want you or your brother to feel unwelcome when I feel quite the opposite. You are welcome here.”

“Even Ryder?” Honeymaren chuckles, rolling her shoulders when Gale leaps off to go inspect the couch.

Grunting shortly, Elsa quirks her brow. “Maybe not in my home-here,” she concedes, making Honeymaren chuckle soft in her throat. She puts her hands in her sweatpants pockets, takes a slow step along behind Gale, nods a little as Elsa follows alongside her. “But, I understand you are _both_ looking at schools, so I suppose. Yes.”

“You didn’t have to do all this,” Honeymaren comments, looking at the couch, expertly made into a bed with sheets and blankets and pillows, all perfectly tucked. “I brought a sleeping bag.”

Elsa ignores the comment, or seems to, wrapping her bare arms around herself and gazing out the window as snow continues to fall. She looks cold. “How long are you in town for?”

“Um,” Honeymaren stalls. “We’re supposed to see a few schools tomorrow, and I’m visiting another one on Sunday,” she answers. Her host nods in silence, raises her hand to her face, neutral. In the meantime, her gut pushes Honeymaren to say more, even as her mind doubts the wisdom of the words she wants to say. “But we ain’t picked up our, um, holiday jobs yet,” she mumbles.

Blonde eyelashes flutter, and confused blue eyes dart her way.

_Explain, Mare!_ “By which I mean, the lodge is closed for the winter. Ryder and Yel and me usually go home, get temp jobs for the, uh, holiday season ‘til it opens again. ‘Til the lodge opens again. And Ryder and me didn’t get any temp jobs yet on account of this trip, didn’t wanna not get the weekend off, so…” _Please, Mare, stop. Stop talking,_ she thinks, swallows her rambling. Elsa’s face conveys mild confusion. Maybe. Her face is uniquely inexpressive at first glance. At last, she just nods.

“You must be tired,” Elsa offers softly.

Nodding, Honeymaren nonetheless teases, _“You’re_ one to talk. That Anna’s a handful!”

Snorting, Elsa rolls her eyes, replies, “You have no idea. Six years.” Shaking her head, she adds, “You wouldn’t care to trade?”

“I’ll keep my doof brother, thanks.”

A sleepy giggle rewards her. That, and the hand guarding Elsa’s face finally lowers. Stormy eyes glancing across Honeymaren, Elsa asks, “Anything you need before bed?”

“No, I’m fine,” Honeymaren assures her, and before she realizes she’s done it, her hand is out of her pocket, lightly touching Elsa’s arm with the back of her fingers. Immediately, Elsa blushes, glancing from Honeymaren’s hand to her face.

Her stomach churns. Honeymaren finds herself leaning forward, presses a soft, chaste kiss to the corner of Elsa’s mouth, making her own heart race. She feels Elsa gasp under her lips before she hears it. Feels her lean into the touch, too. Anxious, eager, Honeymaren nonetheless retreats. “G’night, Els.”

^*^*^*^

Gale will not stop bouncing off the walls.

Elsa groans, as quietly as she physically can. She lays in her bed, stiff as a board, unable to sleep. Because Gale won’t settle.

_Never bothered you before_.

The cat in question can normally enjoy a playful nighttime across the entire apartment. Apparently the bedroom alone is insufficient. She leaps silently onto the bed. Padding softly, Gale nonetheless steps on top of Elsa’s leg, walks up her body, and perches on her chest, her little tail swishing. Elsa opens her eyes, glaring up at the cat. “What?”

In the dark, she sees nothing. But suddenly, Gale starts purring. Loudly.

“Get off!” Elsa grunts, whipping the cover off. Not too fast, just enough that Gale leaps to another corner of the bed while Elsa sits up, swivels to the edge of the bed. She turns a lamp on, sighing as she glances at the clock. Two hours. She’s lain in bed for two hours without sleep. But how could she sleep? With Honeymaren sleeping in the next room?

Finding her water glass empty, Elsa sighs, takes it in hand, carefully treads to her bedroom door. It squeaks slightly as she opens it, and she peers out into the main room. Not that she can see anything in the dark, the curtains drawn against the street lamps’ light outside. She cautiously tiptoes into the hall, toward the kitchen by way of the main room. Soft though she treads, Elsa hears Gale’s scampering feet only a moment before she’s underfoot, tripping her. “Shit!” she hisses softly, catching herself on the kitchen counter. “Damn it, Gale!” The cat races away, tail held high, undeniably pleased with her own antics.

A small moan from the couch. Elsa gasps, suddenly on high alert. A dark shape moves—Honeymaren, lifting her head over the back of the couch. “Elsa?”

How can a sleepy country accent strike such a chord? Elsa’s hand unconsciously raises to her chest. Swallowing thickly, she whispers, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“But you’re awake,” Honeymaren mutters, sleep layering her voice with… something that makes Elsa blush, makes her hand clench the fabric of her nightgown. She pauses, blushing in the dark. At first, she rests her empty glass on the kitchen counter. But she came out here for a reason.

Not just water.

Blinking back the fear in her own eyes, Elsa swivels around the counter, fills her glass, then leaves it on the counter. Her brow crossed with determination, her eyes adjusting to the night around her, she walks to the couch, kneels beside it. Once she looks up, she spots the starlight in Honeymaren’s eyes immediately. Even sleep can’t hide that, can’t mask that magic Honeymaren possesses.

Carefully, deliberately, Elsa raises her hand to Honeymaren’s knee. “I couldn’t sleep.”

A soft blue light illuminates Honeymaren’s face, briefly startles Elsa. She’s grinning. “Me neither. Not really,” she shrugs, shows Elsa her phone in hand. Turning it back toward herself, she croaks, “Looks like our first stop tomorrow is your sister’s school. Ryder asked if I could pick ‘em up in the morning, and we’ll go from there.” Her other hand, resting on her stomach, stretches out. Elsa barely hears the softest gasp as her knuckles brush against Elsa’s cheek—Honeymaren’s gasp. Again, Elsa clutches at her chest. “Sound good?”

Can she see Elsa’s eyelashes flutter? Hear her heart flutter, too?

Seemingly moving of its own accord, Elsa lifts her hand from her chest to Honeymaren’s hand by her face. She hears another gasp as she turns that hand over, trembles through kissing the rough pads of her fingers, pressing her palm against her cheek. Despite hearing Honeymaren take a shuddering breath, the next thing she feels is that rough thumb rubbing gently against her cheek. After a moment more, Honeymaren sits up, swings her legs over the edge of the couch. In the dark, it’s hard to read anything but her eyes, suddenly much closer despite moving her hand to Elsa’s shoulder.

She can _feel_ Honeymaren’s next shuddering breath. “You good?”

Behind them, Elsa hears a plop, sees a white fluffy shape leap over the arm of the couch and curl up on the pillow where Honeymaren had been resting her beautiful head a second ago. Gale must be pleased with herself.

“I am,” Elsa whispers. She slowly stands, blood rushing in her ears as Honeymaren watches her. Taking her hand, Elsa asks, “Come with me?”

Honeymaren nods, stands. Hand in hand, they walk toward the hall—until Honeymaren pauses. Elsa looks back, momentarily afraid, only to find that she’s retrieved the full glass of water.

Once they close the bedroom door behind them, the silence becomes awkward. Or maybe Elsa just feels awkward, realizing possible implications. Honeymaren clears her throat. Walks over to the bedside table and puts the glass down with a gentle thud. She bites her lip, turns her gaze back to Elsa.

Wrapping her arms around herself, Elsa sucks in her breath, her lips. “We don’t have to _do_ anything…”

“No no, I didn’t assume!” Honeymaren assures her.

“I just thought—” she shrugs.

“Everyone wants company when they can’t sleep,” Honeymaren says, smiles kindly. Elsa can hear it. And just like that, everything’s charged between them again. Her arms wrap tighter around her, one hand at her waist and another at her shoulder. Honeymaren puts her own hands in the pockets of her pajama pants. She coughs, turns inward. Muttering, she adds to herself, “Wouldn’t even know what to do…”

But Elsa hears that, too.

Instead of embarrassment (first- or secondhand), tenderness washes through her. Without a further thought, she closes the distance between them, pulls Honeymaren’s hands out of her pockets and holds them. Unsure of what to say, Elsa plucks up her courage and hugs her tight. She wraps her arms around over Honeymaren’s shoulders, leans her head against Honeymaren’s when she wraps her arms round Elsa's waist. Sighing into the embrace, the words finally arrive to Elsa’s lips.

“You came all this way. You’ve done more than enough.” As they pull apart, Elsa presses a chaste kiss to Honeymaren’s lips. “Let’s get some sleep.”

They tuck themselves in, but Elsa reaches for the bedside table, opens her phone briefly—to shoot an email to work.

To take a week’s vacation.

Then approves her own time off, seeing as she’s the most executive executive’s executive assistant and has that power.

Elsa puts the phone down, rolls over and settles in. Honeymaren turns over at that exact moment, holds her breath, her brown eyes alight. If she feels vulnerable, and she’s sure Honeymaren feels the same. Carefully, Elsa reaches out, alighting her fingers over Honeymaren, over the blanket that covers them both. When her fingers reach the top of the blanket, she stops, unsure.

For a moment, her gaze leaves her own fingertips, instead questioning Honeymaren. She also looks unsure—at first. Then, a smirk. Honeymaren starts to turn, flips over to face the wall, making Elsa panic momentarily. But she looks back over her shoulder at Elsa, still smirking. Thank goodness it’s dark because Elsa feels her cheeks immediately blaze. Slowly though, she scoots closer, wraps her arms around Honeymaren’s waist, dips her nose as close to Honeymaren’s hair as she dares, falls asleep nuzzling the back of her neck.

^*^*^*^

^*^*^*^

^*^*^*^

“Whoa wait, wait, babe!” Honeymaren puts her hand out to the side, and she hears Elsa’s feet stop traipsing through the fallen leaves on the forest floor.

“Hm? What is it?”

An irresistible smirk slowly rises to Honeymaren’s lips. She moves her gaze from over her right shoulder to her right, sees Elsa start slightly at the look in her eye. “Let’s check this out!”

Grinning, Honeymaren pops her backpacking backpack to adjust the heavy weight prior to dashing to the right through the undergrowth.

“Wait! Mare!”

“This way!”

Although she hears Elsa huff and groan, she also hears her follow along behind her. After only ten meters, Honeymaren reaches the edge of a craggy rock formation raising above them, covered in greenery despite the incline. Elsa slows to a walk behind her. Turning back to her, Honeymaren teases, “Never knew you to avoid an adventure.”

“When we could become lost in these woods before reaching our destination,” Elsa says grimly, “I can manage to resist.”

“You’re doing the thing, babe.”

Her hand launches up, covers her blonde eyebrows. “I am not!”

“You are,” Honeymaren giggles, and adds, “judging with your eyebrows.”

“I do not!” Elsa hisses. Even with her hand upon her forehead, Honeymaren knows a guilty glare when she sees one. So she shrugs off her pack, letting it fall to the ground—that gets Elsa’s hand down from her face, hands launching to her own bag’s straps in surprise—and leans forward. Her lips hit Elsa’s cheek. Pulling back, she pauses, waits through her heart racing when Elsa’s eyelashes flutter. Her stormy blue eyes see her, look between her eyes, and Honeymaren takes that as her cue. She lifts her own brow just the once at Elsa, smirking.

Then drops to the ground on her chest.

“Mare!”

Honeymaren snorts as she crawls under the lip of rock hiding the entrance to a cave. It’s dark—obviously—and nonetheless she can tell it’s not too spacious in here. After some wriggling, Honeymaren grunts and pushes her hands against the ground, lifts her chest up, and pulls her legs in after her. Reaching into her pants pocket, she puts and turns on a headlamp. Despite its small size, the cave already has stalagmites and stalactites.

“Mare?”

Her admiration for the room stops at the sound of Elsa’s voice. Looking down, she spots a moving shadow in the small stretch of light filtering in from the small entrance she just crawled through. “Elsa!” Honeymaren calls, squatting down. “Come in here!” Her headlamp illuminates herself, including her muddy clothes. “Uh, carefully.” The motion of examining herself causes an odd reflection on the rock wall beside her though, catching her attention.

“But Mare, the campsite—”

“Elsa,” she says, more quietly. “You definitely wanna come in here and see this.”

There’s a pause.

“I mean if we’re going camping anyway, babe, don’t worry about the mud,” Honeymaren offers.

More silence. Then the thud of something against the ground.

“Els?”

She snorts, “Yes?” The light from outside shifts again, along with the sound of sliding earth and rocks.

Immediately, Honeymaren drops to her knees, peeks into the light, smiles broadly at the sight. “You really love me, don’t you, babe?”

“Umph!” Elsa grunts. “Obviously!”

“I love you, too.” They grab each other’s hands. Carefully, Honeymaren pulls Elsa inside. “You good?”

“Good enough,” Elsa grunts. “What’s this I must see?” she asks, blinking rapidly as Honeymaren’s head lamp shines on her pixie cut, shimmering platinum despite crawling over dirt. Angling her head another way, Honeymaren offers Elsa a hand, pulls her up to stand. Suddenly they’re close, and Honeymaren feels Elsa give a kiss to her cheek. She smiles under the touch, feels her face get hot.

“Okay, lover girl. Get your light, I’ll show you,” Honeymaren whispers, crossing her arms to keep herself from engaging further while Elsa checks her various pockets on her weather resistant cargo pants. It’s an odd look for Elsa, even after all these years of accompanying her into all kinds of wilderness to film.

“Right,” Elsa mutters, switching her headlamp on. “Why did I crawl into a cave?” She glares a little at Honeymaren, but her blue eyes are smiling.

Waving her over, Honeymaren bubbles with excitement, says, “Over here, look!” Slowly, she reveals her discovery to Elsa beside her. “Rock, rock, rock, but look!”

Elsa gasps, but not nearly enough in Honeymaren’s opinion. “Oh, a little lizard?”

“A salamander, yes,” Honeymaren tells her, then points. “But look what’s underneath, see?”

Careful not to shine her light into Elsa’s face this time, Honeymaren watches Elsa from the corner of her eye. “What is that…? Orb— _Eggs!”_

“Yeah!” Honeymaren breaths. She looks delighted, and that’s enough to warm Honeymaren through. “You should name it.”

“What?” Elsa asks. “Why would I name a random salamander?”

“Why not? You’re so good at naming things.”

“Like what?”

“Olaf,” Honeymaren says matter-of-factly. “How common a name is ‘Olaf’ for a dog? Not at all, yet that little guy is one-hundred percent an ‘Olaf.’”

“Fine,” Elsa concedes. Pursing her lips, she considers the salamander guarding its eggs. “Bruni.”

“Brew-what?”

“Bruni,” Elsa insists. When Honeymaren gives her a quizzical look, she shrugs, “I saw it on a sign during our layover in Iceland. I think it means ‘burning?’”

“Oh!” Honeymaren says, trying to understand the connection. She looks at the salamander again, thinking, then sees it. “Oh, because the eggs…!”

“When the light hits it just right,” Elsa finishes, smiling softly and turning her headlamp so it just glances off the tiny, reflective orbs.

“Beautiful and poetic,” Honeymaren compliments, gives Elsa another peck to her temple. Then she reaches down, unzips a pocket and pulls out a mini-DSLR camera.

“Hold on,” Elsa starts, eyeing it. “You said you wouldn’t work on this trip.”

“It’s _still_ photography, not film,” argues Honeymaren. She peeks through the eyesight while asking, “Could you do the thing with your headlamp again?”

Although she hears Elsa scoff softly, the light lines up just right. “Perfect, just like Bruni,” Honeymaren says, taking a few shots. When she looks up, Elsa smiles down at her, obviously humoring her. “And now, we got something to remember Bruni with.”

A small hum echoes in Elsa’s throat as she smiles, shrugs, conceding the point. “We should be moving on, though.”

“Absolutely. Let’s get to glamping!”

“Excuse me.” Elsa ducks down, starts crawling back out of the cave. “I hardly call _this_ glamping.”

“But the amenities—!”

“Are the reward for our trek in!” Elsa grunts, and Honeymaren ducks down to exit once Elsa’s shadow disappears.

“What do you mean?” she jeers, her face only an inch from bare earth as she crawls out. “You don’t find spelunking rewarding?” In response, Elsa’s face appears in the thin space letting light in—A dubious face, indeed. Struggling as her head lamp bumps into another rock, Honeymaren concedes, “Fair point.” Soon enough, she’s out, Elsa helping her to her feet. When she shoulders her bag and hands Honeymaren hers, she can’t help but smirk. Wilderness looks good on Elsa, something she hadn’t imagined when they met.

They return to the thin deer trail, walking side by side in silence despite frequent glances each other’s way. For once Elsa’s in charge of this trip, and Honeymaren notices her frequently cross-checking her map, compass, and GPS. The trip in itself makes Honeymaren’s heart flip at random, but to get to spend all this time with Elsa—in person—still wows her. _We really did it, we really made it…_

“This way,” Elsa says quietly, altering their route slightly.

Following, Honeymaren muses, “Wild, isn’t it? That we made it this far?”

“Did you have so little faith in me?” asks Elsa, only a little sarcastic. Definitely commanding—a nice change from her shy early days.

“No,” Honeymaren says, chuckling to herself. “Never,” she adds, adjusting her beanie as the sunlight dips through the trees. “You and me, I mean.” She feels Elsa’s eyes on her, senses that she’ll ask a question. “Did you think we’d still be together, in person, after five years?”

“Hmm.” When Honeymaren lifts her eyes to Elsa’s, she looks away, takes a deep breath. It’s an intense question for her, Honeymaren realizes, so she holds Elsa's hand, waits, confident in her partner. “I suppose I didn’t… but I also didn’t think to imagine this far ahead.”

“Sure as hell didn’t think you’d stick around,” Honeymaren teases.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She kisses Elsa’s hand, smiles at it. “For starters, I didn’t think I’d see you again after the lodge—”

Inhaling sharply, Elsa agrees, “I admit the same.”

“But you got a crazy sister!”

“Careful.”

“Who loves you deeply!” Honeymaren adds. “In the best and worst ways.”

Sighing, Elsa replies, “I cannot deny the truth in that statement. She is a lot.”

“But then choosing different schools?” Honeymaren queries. “Did you really think we’d—?”

“Mare,” Elsa chastises. “Did you really doubt me?”

Pulling, she offers Elsa’s hand a kiss in return. “I doubted _my_ ability to keep _you_ entertained, city slicker.”

“You always entertain me.”

“Though I am flattered, I…” Honeymaren stops short, both with words and in her steps. A shape in the trees ahead doesn’t make sense, even with the sunlight turning bright as it dips below the last of the puffy white clouds above. “What're we looking at here?”

Beside her, Elsa remains silent.

“What’d you do, snowflake?” asks Honeymaren, glancing Elsa’s way.

In a small, quiet way, she smirks. “You’d call it glamping.”

“Show me!”

Humming with satisfaction, Elsa merely tilts her head—an invitation, nay encouragement to go forth. Honeymaren grins first, then sprints ahead through the trees. She might be taller, but Elsa has never kept up with Honeymaren’s run!

Dashing through the ferns, the leaves, the trees, Honeymaren reaches a clearing, great and wide. A cabin is nestled in beside a great, wide tree. A fancy cabin by the looks of it.

“What the fuck, Els?!” Honeymaren shouts with delight. “This puts glamping to shame!” She gazes over her shoulder, spots her companion’s shining smile as she casually strolls through the Norwegian woods. Elsa smiles. Real, wide, with rose-tinted cheeks.

Offering little more than a shy shrug, she simply says, “Happy anniversary.”

Shifting her gaze back to their ‘home’ for the next week, Honeymaren races forward, shouting, “If there’s a jacuzzi—!”

“There isn’t!”

“But there IS a shower! Amenities!”

Elsa’s laughter—her real laugh, the one that doesn’t hum or hide—carries across the distance, into the house through the open door. Honeymaren runs back to her, wraps her arms round Elsa’s neck, waits for her shock and gibberish to wear off. That takes too long, though, so Honeymaren gives Elsa her own impatient, dubious brow and at last kisses her. Chaste first, then biting her perfect lip, earning a delightful little, “Mph!”

“This ain’t camping.”

“I know. I have done camping. With _you_ ,” Elsa assures her, swallowing her reactions. Or at least trying to, by Honeymaren’s estimation. But she’s chewing on her lips, licking them, eyes darting everywhere while nonetheless leaning into Honeymaren’s body.

“This ain’t even no air b-n-b,” she says, kisses Elsa again and lingering closer after. Narrowing her eyes to accuse (in spite of her stubborn smile), she adds, “You liar.”

“For the surprise of it, only!” Elsa rebuts. “If you do not mind, though, I would like to get out of these dirty clothes.”

“Don’t mind if I do!”

“Mare!” squeals Elsa, dodging Honeymaren’s hands at her button-down shirt. She runs away laughing, and Honeymaren chases after her toward the house.

^*^*^*^

Rushing through her own shower (because there are in fact TWO showers!), Honeymaren returns to the kitchen in their vacation rental with haste. At first, she reaches for their abandoned backpacks by the door, then she reconsiders, goes to the cabinets—they’re fully stocked. Because of course! Next, she checks the fridge and finds much the same. She smirks, shakes her head. There will be questions for Elsa to answer later, but first thing’s first: Elsa’s likely hungry. By the time she hears a door open and close down the hall, Honeymaren nearly has prep done for stew. The base already simmers in a pot nearby. Shortly, she’ll have carrots thickly sliced and beef, too. She hears Elsa call for her and responds, “In the kitchen babe!” Footsteps approach as she dumps ingredients into the pot, adds water. “Feeling better?”

“Mhmm,” Elsa hums, but when Honeymaren turns her way, she’s stunned.

Wrapped up in a towel is a _good goddamn look_ for Elsa. Honeymaren manages a mere, “Hi.”

Understandably, Elsa chuckles. “Hello, yourself. What’re you doing in here?” she asks, treading closer to Honeymaren. She seems calm, yet a slight blush covers Elsa’s shoulders, creeps up her neck. Gratitude and desire flutter in Honeymaren’s chest, leaving her wondering if most people feel this way after five years in a relationship, or if perhaps the first three years spent doing long-distance makes her more appreciative. “Honeymaren? You okay?” Elsa asks from beside her.

“Uh! Yeah, sorry,” she replies, shaking herself a little. “Just stew, I figure we should eat soon.”

“The sun’s still up though,” Elsa counters.

“It’s summertime, early fall in Norway. The sun’s always up.”

“Hm, probably.” Her lips pinch, thinking. “Anything I can do?”

“Not in a towel, babe,” Honeymaren says. “Besides, I'd bet your hard work paid handsomely for this place, you go get dressed and relax.”

To that, Elsa sticks her hip out and crosses her arms. “It was a combined effort from both of us.”

“Give yourself some credit,” Honeymaren quips, returning her attention to the pot. “Ain’t no way promoting my films alone made this much bank.”

“You’d be surprised.”

“Plus," Honeymaren continues, ignoring Elsa's objections as she cooks, "you run two-and-a-half businesses, and only one promotes indie documentaries like mine. Queen 'Project Runway,' over here. Or you would be, if they could afford you on that show. I'd be surprised if Rihanna ain't reached out to you yet!”

Hands wrap around Honeymaren’s waist. Elsa leans her chin on Honeymaren’s shoulder, nuzzles in close. “Trust me—”

“I do.” Her interruption stops Elsa’s sentence short. Whatever it is about Honeymaren’s words that gets to Elsa—gets her dipping her lips to Honeymaren’s shoulder, smelling her hair, breathing deep—for her own part, Honeymaren’s glad. No further continuation of Elsa’s thought comes, though. “So, do you trust me to make you some dinner?”

“Yes,” Elsa admits.

“Great. Go get dressed.”

In time, Elsa returns in fresh clothes and sets about starting a fire in the pit outside their front door. Meanwhile, Honeymaren starts rice to go with the stew, then explores their residence for the week while dinner finishes up. She finds a large map on one of the walls, leans against the back of a couch to take her time examining it, already planning hikes to go on with Elsa. If they get around to hiking, of course.

“Fire’s going,” Elsa announces from the front doorway. “Smells good!”

“Almost done. I’ll bring you a bowl in another minute. And guess what?”

“What?”

“They got hot chocolate here. Marshmallows, too, saw them in the cabinets.” Although Elsa doesn’t speak, there’s no mistaking the glee in her eyes. “Go on, get out,” Honeymaren chastises playfully. “No dessert ‘til after dinner.” As she speaks, she marches back to the kitchen, ostensibly to get their dinner served, but mainly to guard the chocolate.

“It’s our vacation,” Elsa counters. “We can eat however we like.”

“And we trekked hiked for over ten hours—you’re eating real food first.”

“You’re no fun!” Elsa calls back from outside, through the screen door. Honeymaren rolls her eyes, smirks, wonders at that insatiable sweet tooth of hers. When she backs out the front door with two full bowls of stew and rice, Honeymaren brightens at the sight of Elsa’s crackling fire.

“Damn, you finally did it.”

“Did what?” Elsa asks, smiling.

“You made a perfect campfire,” Honeymaren says, handing Elsa a bowl.

“Ha ha,” Elsa quips sarcastically. “I make excellent campfires.”

“Only took you five years,” Honeymaren teases. She takes a seat in a chair to the side, but a twig flies through the air, hitting her forehead, almost falls into her food. “Hey!”

Grinning, Elsa says, “There’s more where that came from.”

“Unless I apologize?”

But Elsa shakes her head no, instead instructing her, “Come over here.” She motions to the bench she sits upon herself.

Admittedly, Honeymaren feels a bit surprised, but she’s not complaining about the request. If the special occasion is making Elsa more affectionate than usual, Honeymaren will happily oblige. She returns to Elsa’s side, nudging her with her elbow. “Better?”

“Yes, thank you,” Elsa responds. For a moment, she sounds just like she did a few years ago while still working as an executive assistant and finishing her bachelor’s degree. Anna had convinced Honeymaren to join in visiting Elsa at work, even though Elsa had said she wanted no visitors at work since their _very_ early days. Something about Anna losing visiting privileges forever, which made Anna determined to find a loophole through Honeymaren.

They must both be hungry, because they make short work of dinner—including seconds. As Honeymaren sighs, content and full, Elsa says, “This forest is beautiful.”

Humming, Honeymaren looks up with a quiet, “Yeah.”

While the sun remains above the horizon, its light bends through the trees at a low angle, flickering through the white birch trees’ bark. Strange animals sound around them, leaving Honeymaren wondering what kinds of birds and fish and bugs and ferns and mosses and mammals live out here. So much to explore! Glancing sideways, though, she catches Elsa watching her. “May I help you?”

“Mmm… hm?” Elsa shakes herself a little, distracted. “Sorry?”

“C’mere!” Honeymaren says, wraps her arms around Elsa’s waist and squeezes until she giggles. Absently, she wonders if Elsa blushes a lot in general or just around her. She peppers Elsa’s red cheek with kisses, then lightly bumps their heads together. “You’re lucky you’re cute!”

“Why is that?” Elsa challenges, taking Honeymaren’s bowl from her.

Only for Honeymaren to take both bowls back, saying, “I’d tease you more if you weren’t?”

“Is that a threat?” Elsa reaches to take the bowls again, but Honeymaren stretches her arm out so she can’t reach.

“You ain’t doing these dishes.”

Stretching out, Elsa reminds her, “I am taller than you.”

“Nope.”

“I have the high ground,” Elsa says, standing. Before Honeymaren can make an escape, Elsa grabs at the dirty dishes. “And I’m putting away the leftovers as well.”

“What?! No, Elsa, let me—”

“Absolutely not!”

Undeterred, Honeymaren chases Elsa inside. She catches up as Elsa sets the bowls in the sink, takes hold of Elsa’s shoulder and spins her around. Next thing she knows, Elsa’s arms are over her shoulders, slowly and steadily pulling them closer together, just like her cute little lips pull Honeymaren’s closer. And just as steady, Honeymaren sweeps her arms up Elsa’s back, pressing her fingers into her. She nudges Elsa’s lips away, kisses across her jaw and down her neck, letting her fingers sink lower yet again. A pleased hum meets Honeymaren’s ears as her hands sink into Elsa’s flesh, followed by a gasp as Honeymaren bends down and wraps her hands under her seat, where Elsa’s thighs meet her ass. Elsa clings to her instinctually. Honeymaren saves this particular move for special occasions; it isn't a complete surprise.

Picking Elsa up, Honeymaren waits a moment as Elsa wraps her legs over her hips. Instead of marching to the bedroom, however, Honeymaren simply turns them around and sits Elsa on the counter opposite the kitchen sink. A similar moment comes to Honeymaren’s mind, roughly four years ago during their first winter holiday together in Yelena’s house, the first time she dared to pick Elsa up. Perhaps Elsa remembers it, too, because she moans _exactly_ the way she did back then as Honeymaren bites her lip. She separates from Elsa bit by bit, looks deep into her eyes, then steps back… and grins…

“Wha…?”

And Honeymaren turns around to start doing the dishes.

“You!” Elsa hops off the counter, tries to shove Honeymaren away from the sink. “What are you doing?!”

“Not you, is that the issue?” Honeymaren laughs, reaches for the spray hose.

“How dare you!” Elsa hisses, trying to reach over Honeymaren’s shoulders, but although the taller of the two, she’s not _that_ much taller. Grasping the sprayer, Honeymaren points it over her shoulder and waits. Elsa freezes. “You wouldn't,” she growls.

Remaining silent and still, Honeymaren meets Elsa’s glaring eyes and holds the contact. She smiles gently up at her. Slowly, the glare crumbles. At last, Elsa rolls her eyes and groans, making Honeymaren laugh. “Sorry, babe!”

“No, you’re not,” Elsa accuses, smirking slightly at the corners of her mouth.

“You’re right, I’m not,” Honeymaren admits, turning her attention to the sink. “If I’m gonna jump in front of a bear for you, you better believe I’m gonna jump in front of vacation dishes!” A soft giggle responds. Honeymaren smiles Elsa’s way in time to catch sight of her thinking—one arm crossed over her chest, the opposite fist up by her mouth. “What is it, babe?”

She hums softly, a hint at a giggle. Nursing the lip Honeymaren nibbled on, Elsa asks, “Is that when you knew you loved me?”

“Whoa!” Honeymaren says softly, almost dropping a ceramic bowl covered in soapy suds. Elsa’s grinning, she can tell. Or at least she will be shortly, because Honeymaren can feel her skin flush hot. “I… I think not quite.”

“No?”

“That was a little early.”

“It was an eventful week.”

“And we did spend quite a bit of time together.”

“Yes.”

“But I didn’t _know_ it yet.”

“Know it?”

“You asked if I knew I loved you then. I didn’t know it yet at that point, but…” Honeymaren pauses, shrugs. “It probably started about then. Bears will do that.”

“Driving two days straight probably started it for me.”

“Which time?” Honeymaren chuckles.

For that, Elsa elbows her softly. “The first time you did, obviously.”

“Aww, even though you almost died of shock?”

“Did you do any better?”

“Love you, too.”

Sighing, Elsa kisses Honeymaren’s temple tenderly, coaxing a low moan from her. “I love you. Anything I _can_ do?”

“Start that hot chocolate?” Honeymaren suggests. “When it’s done I’ll bring it outside?”

“Okay,” Elsa agrees. She explores the cupboards, pulling out the mix and marshmallows, finds a kettle at long last. After assurances from Honeymaren that she’s nearly done, Elsa heads to the front door, then returns.

“All well?”

“It’s flurrying a bit,” Elsa explains, searching her backpack.

“Seriously?!”

“Mhmm!” Elsa smiles. “It’s not too cold though, it won't stick.” She quietly shuffles back outdoors, pulling on her jacket. No more than a minute later, the kettle whistle. Wriggling into her own puffer vest, Honeymaren rushes out the front door with mugs of hot cocoa in hand, but she stops in her tracks. Elsa practically glows. Not from the firelight, nor from the slowly rising moon overhead, or even from all that light reflecting off little wisps of snowfall fluttering down from the small cluster of clouds overhead. It’s her eyes… glowing like stars.

Also, she’s on her knees. “Hey…”

_That is not a very Elsa thing to say,_ Honeymaren thinks immediately. “Hey, babe,” Honeymaren says, cautiously approaching Elsa. For half a second, she moves to hand her a mug of hot chocolate. Within less time still, she realizes Elsa’s not taking her hands out of her pockets, so she places both mugs down on the bench nearby. Not accepting chocolate is also not a good sign. “You okay?”

Elsa looks up at her like… Honeymaren isn’t sure. Something’s happening, but her mind is blank, unable to process what emotions play out on the face of her partner of five years. Emotions are _definitely_ happening inside Elsa; Honeymaren’s proud of how good she’s gotten at reading the tiny tells in Elsa’s expressions. But these tells are… big! Or, big for Elsa at least. And she still hasn’t said anything.

Frowning with concern, Honeymaren steps closer, lifts her hands to either side of Elsa’s face. Gently, she cards through her short, platinum hair, trying to reassure her about… whatever’s happening. Seemingly tranquil, Elsa closes her eyes, presses her face against Honeymaren’s abdomen. “Elsa?”

“Honeymaren…”

 _Oh shit, it’s gonna be bad,_ Honeymaren thinks. Mare is fine, Maren is fine, Honey is good, but Elsa is one of three people on the face of the planet that does not regularly call her Honeymaren. Her heart, already vibrating with trepidation, drums noticeably faster. But then Elsa’s arms are wrapping around her thighs in a strange cross between a hug and a caress. _Oh, okay, shit._

“Mare, I…” Elsa begins anew, gathering her thoughts. “I know we’re a little new at this…”

“New at what exactly?” Honeymaren asks gently, smiling curiously down at Elsa. Going on an extremely lavish vacation in another country? (Okay, _lavish_ might suggest something very different from their current surroundings, but still.) Living in the same vicinity? They’d been doing that successfully for a couple years. Living together? They had _just_ moved in together for the first time ever a few months ago. Is this how Elsa handles housing conflict? Sweeping Honeymaren off to another country and 'lavishly' buttering her up before asking that they reorganize the kitchen?

“Hush,” Elsa whispers. “Don’t interrupt, or I’ll lose my nerve.”

_Huh?_

“Honeymaren Nattura—”

“Am I in trouble, babe?”

Stormy blue eyes—the way Honeymaren’s used to seeing them—glance her way, both fretful and a little annoyed. Then Elsa purses her lips, nods sideways, mumbles to herself, “I guess most people do this on one knee, not two.”

Her hand flies to her mouth in shock. Soft, Honeymaren barely utters, “Oh… shit…” Everything in her body is set aflame. Elsa glances up at her face again, and those stars are back in her eyes. Needing to touch her but unable to think clearly, Honeymaren cards through Elsa’s hair again. They stay that way for a long moment, watching each other, just breathing. At last, Elsa steels herself.

“Honeymaren Nattura,” Elsa says.

This time, tears start to pool in Honeymaren’s eyes, her hands tremble, a small whimper escapes her throat.

“It’s not that I believe in love at first sight.”

“Elsa…”

“Rather, I believe that the first time I saw _you_ ,” Elsa continues, and her voice quivers on the last word.

“Babe,” Honeymaren whines, wiping at a snowflake that lands at the corner of Elsa’s eye, melting as a small tear pools there, too.

“When I saw you,” Elsa says, bites her lip and blinks fast. “I knew that everything changed. You changed everything.”

“Els!” Honeymaren whimpers. She sinks to her own knees, fights to keep herself from crying because she wants to see this, _must_ see this, remember it forever. Elsa’s arms wrap around her as she kneels, hold Honeymaren tight as they both breathe through what’s about to happen. After one particularly long, deep breath, Elsa pulls back. Taking Honeymaren’s hands, she nods with her eyes closed, mouthing a few words to herself. And Honeymaren can feel that there is an object in one of Elsa’s hands, roughly the shape of a box.

Determined, Elsa opens her eyes, releasing a few tears as she does. “Then,” she gasps, “you changed everything day after day after day.” She brings their hands up between them and kisses Honeymaren’s scarred knuckles with trembling lips.

The kiss does her in. Honeymaren’s eyes flood, and she roughly wipes them with her sleeve.

Elsa giggles softly at the gesture, though, gets Honeymaren giggling. Finally, she says as evenly as she can, “I would like to ask you to never stop changing everything every day, with the promise that I will try to change everything for you every day. Always for the better.”

“Fuck,” Honeymaren utters quietly through clenched teeth. All she can do is watch Elsa’s eyes, even as she sits back and opens the little box. There could be dirt in that box for all Honeymaren cares, she’d still be completely swept off her feet.

There isn’t dirt, there’s a ring, but the point stands.

Letting herself break at last, Elsa cries through her last words, “Honeymaren Nattura, will you please marry me?”

Honeymaren says, “Only you add a please.”

“Mare!”

Honeymaren's hands are covering her face. She’s crying too much. She nods, whimpering into her hands, then into Elsa’s shoulder as she holds her. Shuddering herself, Elsa sways them side to side slightly, keening to her sweetly, “Honey, it’s okay, it’s okay, don’t cry.”

They separate. Elsa starts crying again as she carefully puts the ring on Honeymaren’s finger… postponing her momentary plan to explain that Yelena’s old wedding ring has been hiding under Honeymaren’s side of the bed at home since they moved in together. Then they'd never stop crying. Instead, she wraps Elsa up in her arms, swaying them back and forth as Elsa takes her turn to cry. Honeymaren hums to her until the words come back to her.

_“I’d be home with you… home with you…”_

…

…

…

“You think the cocoa’s cold?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And then, Elsa started growing her hair long again because WEDDING (in like another five years, because these two are impossible stoics)
> 
> This is the first proposal scene I've ever written, lemme know if there wasn't enough crying.  
> I just assume there's supposed to be a lot of crying.


End file.
